Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Dragonflight, is coming out later this year.
This is something of a surprise. The last expansion, Shadowlands, launched in November 2020. While a two year wait between expansions isn’t unprecedented, it is a relatively fast turnaround considering the slow release of updates the MMO has received in recent years.
Dragonflight is WoW’s ninth expansion. It adds the dragon-like Dracthyr race and the new Evoker class. Dragonflight has some work to do to restore World of Warcraft’s reputation after Shadowlands, which disappointed many players with its overabundance of systems and nonsensical plot threads.
Microsoft is in the middle of acquiring Blizzard and its parent company, Activision.