World of Warcraft’s first update of 2024 is just around the corner, and although it’s technically labeled as a “minor” patch, it will add some game-changing new features to Blizzard’s MMORPG.
Blizzard has announced WoW’s next update, Seeds of Renewal, will arrive on January 16. Update 10.2.5 will bring Dragonflight’s excellent dragonriding flight system to all of Azeroth, something players have requested ever since they first got their hands on the new type of in-game flight during Dragonflight’s Alpha test. It will also allow players to run normal difficulty dungeons with NPC followers, letting newer players, or players new to particular classes or roles like healing or tanking, a way to brush up on their skills before jumping into groups with real players.
Both follower dungeons and the ability to dragonride everywhere are two major features that in years past would likely have come as part of a major content patch or a whole new expansion, not a minor .5 update. Yet those two features, as big as they are, aren’t even everything coming in Seeds of Renewal. New story quests that will see the Worgen reclaim the fallen kingdom of Gilneas are also coming as part of the update, as well as new character customization options for Trolls, Draenei, and Warlock demons. It will additionally see the return of one of Dragonflight’s new events, the Azerothian Archives.
Seeds of Renewal is the first update listed on Blizzard’s 2024 content roadmap for WoW, with additional updates including a mysterious, potentially pirate-themed 10.2.6 patch for later this winter or early spring, a proper Dragonflight Season 4 that will remix the expansion’s raids later in the spring, and the release of WoW’s next expansion, The War Within, later in the year. The expansion’s pre-patch, which will add anticipated features like the new account-wide Warband system, will arrive ahead of the expansion’s launch sometime this summer.
The War Within will be the first in a series of three expansions that will tell one, overarching narrative Blizzard is calling The Worldsoul Saga, with the goal being to begin releasing future expansions faster than WoW’s usual two-year expansion cadence. In other WoW news, Blizzard will be rereleasing a Classic version of the game’s Cataclysm expansion in Summer 2024. Those who prefer the original, “vanilla” version of WoW can currently jump into Season of Discovery, which adds new role-defining class abilities and level-up raids for a new spin on the old-school version of the longrunning MMO.
