Blizzard Entertianment announced today that the Battle for Azeroth expansion for World of Warcraft is coming out on August 14.
This will be the seventh expansion for multiplayer online role-playing game. World of Warcraft requires a subscriptions, which costs $15 per month. Subscription numbers peaked in 2010 at 12 million before falling to 5.5 million after the Warlords of Draenor expansion in 2015. After that, Blizzard stopped reporting those numbers. But a new expansion always brings an increase in players.
Battle for Azeroth focuses on the conflict between the Horde and the Alliance, World of Warcraft’s two player factions. It increases the level cap from 110 to 120 and introduces two new locations: Zandalar and Kul Tiras. The expansion centers on these new island empires. Battle for Azeroth also adds Island Expeditions, adventures designed for three players, and Warfronts, 20-player cooperative experiences that have real-time strategy elements.
World of Warcraft’s last expansion, Legion, came out in 2016. Fans received it warmly, appreciating the introduction of systems like level-scaling for zones and Mythic+ dungeons (which let you increase the difficulty of dungeons in exchange for better rewards). Both of those systems are returning for Battle for Azeroth.