World of Warcraft: Legion Review - Polygon - WORLD OF WARCRAFT LEGION NEWS

game information Box type N / A. GAIN platform Activision Blizzard Editorial Blizzard Entertainment develo...

Blizzard has something to prove with World of Warcraft: Legion . Or, to put it differently, perhaps more correctly: Blizzard has to prove something.

Despite an extremely positive reception , the latest expansion of World of Warcraft , Warlords of Draenor , proved to be a disaster. There was an unprecedented drop in paid subscribers, and even those who stayed there seemed dissatisfied with the state of the game .

Enter Legion , an expansion designed to restore player trust 12 years after the launch of World of Warcraft and to introduce a smarter and more sustainable path for the future. It is no longer surprising that the launch experience was largely excellent. The real question, however, is whether Legion World of Warcraft is preparing for future success.

After being distracted from the Warlords of Draenor's alternate timeline, Legion takes players back to Azeroth, where the army of demons, which has long been the main evil behind the scenes, began their last invasion of the planet. To stop this invasion, players need to travel to the Abrupt Islands, a long forgotten area that hides powerful artifacts that could change the course of the war.

However, the Legion has a lot to do before it even goes to the Abrupt Islands. Each of the game's 12 classes, including a new addition, the Demon Hunter, receives a unique set of introductory missions, which are then broken down according to the specialization chosen. Legion encompasses class fantasy: the experiences of each class feel separate, as they have rarely done in the past.

The first-class missions and some later rhythms of the legion's story bring a welcome change even after two expansions in distant countries: Use the world of Warcraft and send them all over Azeroth to visit unused places and characters for years. Legion creates a sense of history and place that is much broader than WoW's average expansion; It is expressed in more epic mission chains with larger missions than just telling the story of a single area.

Of course, the unique zone stories of the new Legion zones remain a highlight. The expansion features some of the largest and most beautiful regions the game has ever seen, such as the Val de Val'Sharah Elf-Druid Refuge and Stormheim-inspired Vikings. For the first time in the history of World of Warcraft Legion implemented a Level-scaling system, which means that you can run any area in the desired order.

On the one hand, this new system means that Legion is not as good as the previous expansions to present a general story that progresses as you level, as it doesn't know which zones you will play first. On the other hand, it is now guaranteed that each zone will offer an appropriate level of challenge and reward, regardless of whether it is the first zone it enters or the one that cleans up to the new 110 limit. The level scale also works great for longevity to ensure that Blizzard can stream content from the last game into one of the new zones without having to worry about designing special zones with maximum levels.

In fact, the biggest additions Legion and his best argument of hope for the future at the end of the game. The traditional end of the World of Warcraft is almost entirely focused on large-scale raids, with content of extremely limited solo in the form of small centers where players can perform daily missions. Raids are still an important place to spend time once you hit the level limit. However, the daily missions have been redesigned in a brilliant new system called World Missions.

Initially, global missions are similar to the old daily mission system in that they help improve their status and reputation in the new country, and they are asked to log in regularly to complete these missions. So the difference is that there are many more global missions that come and go all the time. The five areas of the Legion, including the Suramar Area Level Limit, offer dozens of possible world missions, from the usual number of Kill X number of enemies, or follow a high value goal that unique requests B. ride a magical tiger through magical sources or solve a riddle. There are even global missions dedicated to player-to-player combat and the various crafting and collecting professions.

Global missions not only offer a wider range of activities, but also better and faster rewards than the old daily mission routine. Every day the game gives you a faction to complete four global missions. If you respond to this request, you will receive a faction cache full of rewards, which (rarely) contains loot that can be as good as what you get from falling dungeons and high-level groups. These faction challenges can last up to three days, which relieves the pressure that you have to log in every day or be lost.

Exotic and rare missions made me run to my computer

But if you're like me, you probably still want to sign up every day. Shortly after Legion launched, Blizzard launched a complementary Legion phone application that allows you to track current global missions and their rewards. There are rare and exotic missions where I ran on my computer, e.g. B. Missions that offer new pets, mounts, and equipment upgrades. In addition, average research offers an artifact power, a new resource that is very much in demand for its launch.

The power of the artifacts is powered by another intelligent system of the Legion : the weapon of the artifacts. These class-based missions, which begin with the expansion, end when your character takes control of a powerful weapon from the World of Warcraft tradition. Many of these weapons are tools of destruction that players have seen or heard in action for years. For example, upgrade shamans can handle Doomhammer, the magical hammer that the hero Warcraft Thrall has been carrying for years. The idea that every character in a particular specialization works with the same weapon seems silly, but the game quickly offers options to visually style the weapon of your choice and stand out from the crowd.

The main concern of players who have a gun throughout the expansion is that Blizzard had to offer a different form of progress. For this reason, the developer introduced the power of artifacts, a system that allows you to upgrade your weapon, unlock new skills and increase your power far beyond the character level limit. Each artifact weapon can reach level 54 and the requirements for each level increase exponentially. At this point, two months after the extension, I'm reaching level 20 with one of the three artifact weapons available for my class.

Between the mandatory nature of global emissions and the continued effort to force artifact Legion is already dodged one of the bullets that Warlords of Draenor killed. At this point in the life of the previous expansion, players had reached the level limit and had little to do other than looking for equipment upgrades to make the raids a little sweeter. Sure, part of the player base has already been used for world missions, but this time it doesn't seem to be Blizzard's fault. The developer has provided a lot to keep us busy and happy.

In addition, Blizzard has introduced a much more aggressive patch schedule for Legion . Earlier this week, less than two months after the expansion started, the developer released Patch 7.1. This huge drop in content includes a large dungeon with five men, even more world missions and a new set of historical missions. The developer used this latest expansion to unlock chapter by chapter in nine weeks. Players cannot just go through missions and face weeks without anything new happening.

After more than 80 hours, I barely scratched the surface of any changes Legion brings to World of Warcraft . The craft and collections have been renewed to include significant advances and research content. Player-to-player combat now has its own system of levels and perks that has nothing to do with the rest of the game, with a prestige option straight from Call of Duty. Thanks to the new legendary difficulty level for dungeons with five people, you can increase the challenge and reward the payment indefinitely. This allows players to focus on content in small groups instead of daring to do so. There is practically no part of the game that has not been touched and changed for the better.

wrap:

World of Warcraft: Legion intelligently addresses players' concerns for a long time

In any case, it seems like a fool's task to investigate a massive multiplayer game, as it is impossible to predict the long-term effects of these changes, let alone all released together. Will everyone miss what the Legion has to offer six months later? Will Blizzard disappoint its fans again by not being able to maintain a constant flow of game additions until the seventh game expansion starts?

Anything is possible, so this review can currently only speak for the condition of the Legion . This condition is excellent. In the course of 12 years of World of Warcraft to life , I have never seen such a responsive and specific addition in its goal of individual problems that have disturbed the fans of life. New systems like world missions and mythical dungeons offer the potential to keep the game fresh and attractive for much longer. And the classic content of missions and raids is better than ever. Blizzard could still drop the ball, but it would be a shame to see it drop.

World of Warcraft: Legion was checked against the final PC code that Polygon employees bought. More information on Polygon's Ethics Policy can be found here .

About ratings on polygon