The traditional cadence of World of Warcraft was blown apart when Blizzard announced that the next expansion, The War Within, was to be the first of three released over a shorter period. As part of that move, the developers behind the game have confirmed that all three are under active development.
In a conversation with Dexerto, Vice President of World of Warcraft Holly Longdale confirmed that both subsequent expansions set for release after The War Within are already under active development.
“The War Within is finishing development over this year. The 12 expansion, Midnight, is also in development, though in a different phase to The War Within, obviously. Then we’ve got 13, which is The Lost Titan, which is also in development at one of the earlier stages.
“Having the story planned out this far in advance affords us a lot of opportunity. One of those is really looking at when we make features for the game to support the story that we’re making, that will have to stand the test of time because the features we make now are evergreen, they’re intended to last.
“We want to make sure that there are connecting threads between them all. They’re meaningful. Not just to the stories that we have coming up in these three expansions, but to add to our world and create more interaction and immersion with our world in general.
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“We have a view with a longer timeline, which allows us to plan and will hopefully create more connective tissue in the content and features we create. We are also trying to ship our expansions faster than we ever have at the same time, which is why we have parallel development.”
The announcement of three simultaneous expansions was undoubtedly a huge change of tactic for the World of Warcraft team. Subsequently, this has been coupled with a faster release cadence for upcoming patches, both before and after The War Within arrives.
Though this clearly necessitates simultaneous development cycles, the news will come as a relief to fans who have felt the disconnect between expansions in previous years.
