WoW associate game director Morgan Day hinted at integrating a single-player "story mode" into the game's legacy raids, amid the upcoming launch of its next expansion, The War Within.
WoW Sr. Dev Hints at Single-Player "Story Mode" for Legacy Raids
Dev Team is Currently More Focused on The War Within Expansion
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, World of Warcraft (WoW) Associate Game Director, Morgan Day, revealed an interesting development coming to the game in light of the upcoming release of WoW's The War Within expansion: a single-player story mode for the game's legacy raids. Debuting in The War Within expansion this August, "story mode" allows solo players to battle the last bosses of the game's raids and experience the full narrative.
Raids have been multiplayer activities requiring a number of online players to battle bosses. Legacy Raids refer to raids that have been included in previous expansions.
Day mentioned that the idea for story mode grew from the success of "Chromie Time," a feature added in the Shadowlands expansion that allows players to re-play past expansions' and level up. "We always talk about the strength of World of Warcraft and how we have so much cool content," Day told PC Gamer. "What if story mode could help leveling players complete those narratives and experience classic raid moments solo as part of the journey to max level?"
Day explained that while the game has expanded its accessibility, they still want to maintain the prestige of completing raids at high difficulty levels. "We respect that raids are for these people, while also understanding that the story is critical to these other people," he said.
The idea is still in its early stages, and much will depend on player feedback. Production Director Michael Bybee said that they take into account the community reactions in making decisions regarding the feature. "This is the first time we've done it exactly like this. We're going to try this out," he said. "We want to understand how you guys respond to it because that's going to shape what we do next."
Currently, the team is focused on implementing story mode for The War Within expansion. Integrating this story mode feature into Legacy Raids is a longer-term goal. Day noted, "It's just a matter of working towards that end goal over time, as we add these new features that allow us to put that tool in our toolbelt."
The upcoming expansion launches globally at the same time around the world. Here’s what time that is based on your local time zone:
⚫︎ Americas (PDT): August 26 at 3:00 PM
⚫︎ Americas (EDT): August 26 at 6:00 PM
⚫︎ Europe (CEST): August 27 at 12:00 AM
⚫︎ Korea (KST): August 27 at 7:00 AM
⚫︎ ANZ (AEST): August 27 at 8:00 AM
