[News] World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight Review In Progress - Who Says You Can't Go Home?

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World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is about coming home, in more ways than one. It's a homecoming for the titular Dragonflights of Blizzard's long-running MMORPG, who return to their ancient ancestral home to pick up the pieces and rebuild after thousands of years away. It's also a homecoming for players, who after years of languishing in WoW's unpopular Shadowlands expansion, get to return to Azeroth and all the familiar sights and sounds it holds.

Dragonflight, in that regard, is incredibly nostalgic, but not in the way you might expect. Though it without a doubt features the return of fan-favorite characters, monsters, and even gameplay systems, it never feels beholden or shackled by them. Instead, it takes those familiar elements and breathes new life into them. Whether it's the return of talent trees reminiscent of those from the game's earliest expansions, the game's updated user interface, its lack of mandatory activities, or the feeling of adventure the new dragonriding system invokes, Dragonflight miraculously feels both fresh and familiar at the same time. Even if there are some aspects of Dragonflight that could be improved, I can't help but be impressed at how a handful of new ideas, along with major facelifts to some old ones, breathe new life into Blizzard's flagship title.

Dragons, as you might expect, are the star of this new expansion. Players ride new, highly customizable Dragon Isles Drakes. The majority of the main campaign's primary characters are dragons. There's even a new dragon race, the Dracthyr, that is only playable as the new dragon-themed spellcasting class, the Evoker. The Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Wrathion, and Kalecgos all play key roles in the game's initial story campaign. To see them all front and center for the first real time since 2010's Cataclysm expansion is part of what makes Dragonflight feel so nostalgic, signaling a return to the high fantasy of Azeroth after nearly two years of the dark, dour, and death-themed settings and characters of Shadowlands.

Even if its setting and characters feel familiar, there is no mistaking that Dragonflight brings a modern perspective to Blizzard's nearly 20-year-old MMO. WoW has long been defined by the rivalry between Azeroth's two political superpowers, the Horde and the Alliance. It was just four years ago that a massive war between the two factions nearly tore Azeroth apart in the game's Battle for Azeroth expansion. Dragonflight, however, feels almost entirely removed from the franchise's long history of inter-faction conflict.

Part of that is thanks to the story Blizzard is trying to tell in Dragonflight. The expedition to the mystical Dragon Isles, which has only recently reemerged after 10,000 years, is not a race between the Horde and Alliance to see who can colonize it first (as was the case when the two factions discovered the continent of Pandaria back in 2012) but scientific in nature. From the outset, you're told the petty differences between the Horde and Alliance are to be put aside and that violence between the groups will not be tolerated. Adventurers (aka players) are welcome to join the Dragonscale Expedition, which consists of members of both factions, not because their martial prowess is needed to wage war against their longtime rivals, but because all the artisans, scientists, and explorers coming along are bound to need a hand, and some occasional protection, while documenting the many mysteries of the Dragon Isles.

Dragonflight's themes of cooperation and exploration also stem from gameplay realities. It was earlier this year that Blizzard tore down the wall between the two factions, at long last allowing friends on different sides of Azeroth's Iron Curtain to group together for dungeons, raids, and more. To play up the idea of a faction war and insist that each and every Horde and Alliance player are mortal enemies, even while players on opposite factions are quite literally fighting side-by-side and talking to one another, would have been absurd. Blizzard, thankfully, didn't go that route, and smartly focused on aspects of WoW that have felt largely absent in recent years, namely its sense of adventure.

Dragonriding works miracles in that department. On paper, it doesn't sound like much. The ability to fly in WoW has been around since 2007, after all. But if there was ever a feature introduced specifically for a single expansion that deserves to become a new standard in all expansions moving forward, dragonriding is it. Dragonriding is fast. Very fast. As in, almost three times as fast as the game's fastest non-dragonriding mounts. But even putting aside the obvious speed advantages, it's also remarkably fun. That's because rather than effectively functioning as a passive speed buff, as the game's normal mounts do, dragonriding mounts bring actual gameplay to the table and allow you to interact with the environment in meaningful ways. Diving will help increase your speed. Flying uphill, conversely, can be a struggle. Trying to get to a high-up mountain top? Find a nearby building or uprooted tree to take off from and give yourself a little extra height as you begin your ascent. Flying is no longer just a way to get from point A to point B, but engaging gameplay all its own.

You even have abilities while dragonriding, namely a speed boost and an upward surge that helps get you off the ground. You can unlock more later, along with the power to use your abilities more often, from collecting dragonriding glyphs that are scattered throughout each of the four Dragon Isles zones. In a brilliant design choice for a game that has long held players' hands when it comes to questing and exploring its world, these glyphs are not marked on your map. Instead, when one is nearby, the game will alert you, giving you a general idea of where the glyph might be and how far away it is. From there it's up to you to ascend skyward and keep your eyes peeled. These are hardly hidden and can usually be found in high places, but it makes the act of flying through a zone all the more exciting, knowing there are meaningful rewards to be found. Better yet is that all of the glyphs are available for you to find from the moment you acquire your first Dragon Isles Drake within the first hour of the expansion. There is no max level requirement or any kind of barrier keeping you from simply spending the next hour meticulously collecting each glyph and unlocking dragonriding's full potential as soon as possible, if your heart so desires. After numerous expansions of having flying be off limits at the start and needing to be unlocked months later through an assortment of achievements and in-game accomplishments, simply having access to this new form of flying from the get-go does wonders when it comes to exploring the new world Blizzard has created.

The one downside to dragonriding is you can occasionally find yourself needing to go uphill, but without the required energy to get high enough into the air to make any meaningful progress. That results in you hoofing it on foot or simply waiting around for your dragonriding stamina meter to recharge. It's not a great feeling, but it's one that thankfully starts to happen less and less often as you discover more glyphs and unlock more dragonriding traits that help to improve the experience. Flying at high speeds passively recharges your stamina, and the ability to do so consistently and more effectively becomes easier as you find more glyphs as well, allowing you to stay skybound for longer and eliminating the need to wait around for your stamina to recharge if you play your cards right.

As you work to aid the Dragonscale Expedition and the inhabitants of the Dragon Isles, you'll also help each of the Dragonflights renew their vows as Azeroth's protectors and restore their homelands. This all is happening just as an ancient enemy of the dragons, the intimidatingly-named Raszageth the Storm Eater, looks to forge a new path for dragonkind by essentially destroying everything the Dragon Aspects (and by extension the Titans, who gifted the Dragon Aspects their power) stand for. Villains can make or break a WoW expansion (see Shadowlands' comically disappointing Jailer for a masterclass on how not to make a big bad), so I'm happy to report that Raszageth, over the course of the game's main story campaign, is refreshingly over-the-top and straightforward. While there is some truth behind her reasons for wanting to burn down the established order and she sets up some intriguing mysteries that will no doubt be explored later on in the expansion, she is not some morally gray or misunderstood character. Will she likely be overshadowed by whoever the ultimate baddie of Dragonflight turns out to be to several patches from now? Probably. But for the time being, she's big, she's bad, and she's bold, and it's nice to have a main villain like that coming off of Shadowlands.

It was to help defeat Raszageth the first time around that the game's new Dracthyr race were originally created, before being put into a magic-induced coma by none other than Neltharion, the dragon Aspect that would go on to become Deathwing. Now, thousands of years later, the Dracthyr have awoken to a strange new world and must fight to find their place in it. Dracthyr are highly customizable, with both an elf-like "Visage" form and a dragon-form to spend hours perfecting in the game's character creator. The Dracthyr even come with a fun racial ability that automatically transforms you in and out of your Visage form depending on whether or not you are in combat. The primary downside to playing a Dracthyr from a visual standpoint is that your equipped gear while in dragon form is largely invisible, with only your shoulders and belt viewable on your character. There is a wide selection of cosmetic armor that can be equipped on your Dracthyr from the character creation screen to counteract this somewhat, but it's a remarkably odd choice (or in all likelihood a technical limitation) to have it so the majority of your gear can't be seen.

Though the new Evoker class that is exclusive to the Dracthyr isn't as instantly iconic as the other two hero classes that have been added to WoW over the years, there's no denying the Dracthyr are Warcraft through and through. Some of their abilities, like Strafe and Deep Breath, are directly inspired by WoW's most iconic dragon raid bosses, while the majority of their toolset pulls directly from the various magics associated with each Dragonflight. The DPS-focused Devastation specialization utilizes the potent offensive capabilities of the Red and Blue Dragonflights, while the healing-oriented Preservation specialization takes full advantage of the nature-focused Green Dragonflight and the time-warping magic of the Bronze Dragonflight to keep allies healthy and out of harm's way. As for how they play, they are among the most mobile classes in the game, coming equipped with a built-in slow-fall, multiple movement-speed-enhancing abilities, and even a mini version of dragonriding that they can use at any time, no mount required. In addition to sporting numerous instant-cast spells, they are also the first class to feature what Blizzard has dubbed "Empowered" abilities, which is a fancy way of saying you hold down an ability key to charge up an ability, and then let off the key to fire off the ability to devastating effect. These all together make for a class that feels more active than even the Demon Hunter, as you are constantly charging up abilities, casting on the move, darting between friends and foes, and even rewinding time. It's fun and frenetic, and choosing for how long to charge up an Empowered ability and when to release it adds another level of planning and reactivity to each enemy encounter.

If you've played any modern-day WoW expansions, you largely know what to expect when it comes to how Dragonflight's campaign is structured. You're ferried from main story quest to main story quest, working your way through each of the game's four new zones before hitting max level, after which you're granted access to things like Heroic dungeons, World Quests, and more. It's a little disappointing that for an expansion so steeped in themes of discovery, the main campaign on your first character is remarkably linear. You must complete the story campaign in The Waking Shores, for example, before unlocking the story campaign for the next zone, the Ohn'ahran Plains, etc.

There is no skipping ahead or bouncing between multiple storylines, even though each zone's main story is largely standalone and isn't influenced by the events of the story in any other. You can break off and do side quests in any zone to your heart's content (and you'll likely want to, as Dragonflight's side quests are where many of its best stories and moments can be found), but you'll eventually have to return to the linear, critical path and finish the main story if you want to start progressing your character into the endgame. It's only then that you have the option for subsequent characters of selecting the order in which you'd like to play the main story thanks to the addition of a new Adventure mode, along with the added benefit of being able to tackle various World Quests from the start. It's a welcome feature, but it wasn't that long ago that WoW expansions let players go where they wanted from the get-go. Combined with the independence dragonriding grants you, and it feels like Blizzard missed a major opportunity to inject some much-needed freedom into the game's increasingly on-rails first-playthrough campaign experience.

The four zones of the Dragon Isles themselves are a joy to journey through. Each zone is massive and built with verticality in mind in order to accommodate dragonriding, but they critically don't feel empty. Whereas many modern WoW expansions have felt the need to cram as many locations and enemies into its zones as possible, oftentimes to their own detriment, the new Dragon Isles zones feel remarkably open, alive, and lived in. The Azure Span and the Ohn'ahran Plains in particular feel like greatest-hits versions of zones from expansion's past. The Ohn'ahran Plains captures the essence of zones like Nagrand (both versions) and even the Barrens, while the Azure Span is almost like a long-lost Northrend zone, complete with the ever-lovable Tuskarr and music that invokes one of WoW's most beloved zones, Grizzly Hills. The capital city of the Dragon Isles, Valdrakken, is conveniently located high above the rest of the zones. It never gets old leaping off the city's walls on your dragonriding mount, going into a dive, and flying at high-speeds to wherever in the Dragon Isles you want to go. At max level, many of the zones have unique world events that add some great personality to them, like a giant community soup-making event at the Tuskarr village in the Azure Span or a siege to retake an ancient keep belonging to the Black Dragonflight in The Waking Shores. These kinds of events, in addition to being a great way to snag some rewards, help to make the Dragon Isles feel like real places rather than mere quest hubs.

Link: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-dragonflight-review-in-progress-who-says-you-cant-go-home/1900-6418011/