World of Warcraft: The War Within is the newly announced expansion heading to Blizzard's long-running MMO once Dragonflight draws to a close. In fact, it's the first of three new expansions revealed for the WoW: Worldsoul Saga trilogy, with subsequent entries named Midnight and The Last Titan.
As the name suggests, The War Within will take us beneath the surface of Azeroth to the land of Khaz Algar where we'll meet the Earthen, a race of dwarves, as well as darker forces such as the Nerubians. Of course, a new setting isn't all that comes with an expansion: there will be a new level cap, dungeons, and a raid to overcome. If you're ready to find out more, here's what we know about World of Warcraft: The War Within.
When is the WoW: The War Within release date?
There is no confirmed release date for WoW: The War Within, but the 2024 roadmap for World of Warcraft shows a launch window of late summer, early autumn, so we should expect to see the expansion arrive anywhere from August to October, 2024.
This ties in with the timeline of previous expansions, which generally run for around two years: Dragonflight was released at the end of November 2022 so you'd generally expect The War Within to be out sometime between October and December next year. Of course, the expansion currently has a "late summer" launch window, but it's possible this may change as we get closer to release.
Is there a WoW: The War Within alpha?
Blizzard has announced that alpha testing will start in the Spring of 2024 and the roadmap above confirms that. Historically, this stage has been very focused, with only a small number of select players included.
That said, if you want to be in with a chance of getting into the subsequent beta when it arrives, you can opt-in on the official site once the date of the testing phase has been announced.
Quick facts on The War Within
- Level cap: 80
- New zones: four new zones, all subterranean
- Delves: A new endgame activity—solo or group up
- New Allied race: Earthen
- Warbands: Share achievements and progression with selected alts
- Hero Talents: Choose your path.
- Dragonriding stays: And the capability will be added to most mounts
Subterranean zones
The subterranean zones of The War Within
All of the new zones in The War Within are deep beneath the surface of Azeroth. It shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, considering the last few expansions have been hinting that the long-running MMO is heading in that direction story-wise. And let's face it, the massive sword in Silithis has literally been pointing us to the location of this expansion since the end of Legion.
Khaz Algar is the home of the Earthen, and Dornogal, their capital city, will be the new hub for players during The War Within. The land is split into four zones: Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azj-Kahet. All four have their own distinguishing features and look surprisingly bright and cheerful for underground zones—except Azj-Kahet, which looks understandably dark and voidy.
Endgame activities
Delve into, err, Delves
As well as the usual collection of new dungeons and raids, delves are being added to The War Within. These are a new type of endgame activity that can be performed solo or in a group. These are meant to be completely separate from dungeons and raids, and players shouldn't feel like they're obligated to do them each week.
You'll also be able to take an NPC companion along with you, who can change into whichever specialisation you or your group needs. There will also be various difficulty levels, bosses to overcome, and puzzles to solve if you want to reach the pile of loot at the end. These will tie in with seasons, too, as other endgame activities do.
The Earthen
Horde dwarves? Meet the Earthen, a new allied race
If you're a Horde player who's always quite fancied playing a dwarf, now's your chance: you can choose either faction when picking this new allied race. While this might seem odd, don't forget that we've already had what is essentially a race crossover with the Alliance's Void Elves. Earthen can also play as most classes, except for Druid, Demon Hunter, and Evoker.
Unlike the original allied races, the Earthen will automatically unlock as a playable race by working your way through The War Within campaign. It's a huge sigh of relief for those of us who had to grind out the reputations and quest chains to unlock the earlier allied races.
Alt progression
Warbands let you share progression with selected alts
Before you get too excited, this will only apply to progression from The War Within and Dragonflight expansions. You'll be able to select which alts you want to include in a "Warband" and those will share the following:
- Bank access: You'll get a bigger bank—and reagent bank—so you don't need to keep mailing items or gold between your alts.
- Renown and reputation: This will just be for Dragonflight and The War Within for now.
- Flight paths: Any discovered by one character is known by the others.
- Achievements: These are also shared among Warband alts, though it's unclear if that includes those from earlier expansions.
- Transmog: Can be learned by any character but only worn by the correct class.
It's a pretty big decision to switch main characters for most, and if you have a load of progression in terms of reputation or achievements tied to your old character, it makes it much harder to make that leap. Sharing these things with Warbands should take the sting out of switching main characters.
While Warbands don't include everything that players have been asking for over the years, it's a very promising start.
New class feature
Choose your Hero Talents
Each class will have more talents to assign as they level up to the new cap of 80. These have been designed to give two different focuses for a particular class. A druid, for example, might want to choose between strengthening Treants or Lunar abilities.
You can see an example of how this will work in the screenshots above, though the actual talents are expected to change over the coming months as testing commences and feedback is given.
Dragonriding
Dust off your old mounts
Dragonriding is here to stay, though it will be called "dynamic flying" once we leave the Dragon Isles. You won't need to collect Dragon Glyphs to power it up either, as the plan is to have those abilities as default.
One of the bigger issues with dragonriding is that it limits which mounts you use day-to-day. You might have a collection of 300 or more mounts, but if you can only use a handful of them for dragonriding, it kinda takes away the point of collecting them. Thankfully, this is being addressed and most of your old mounts should work with dragonriding in The War Within. Additionally, you'll be able to use dynamic flying on older continents too.
