World of Warcraft recently announced Dragonflight, its ninth expansion pack. In a recent roundtable interview, World of Warcraft confirmed it was farther along in the development of Dragonflight than many expected.
The interview, hosted by Taliesin of the popular World of Warcraft content creator duo Taliesin and Evitel, was with game director Ion Hazzikostas and lead narrative designer Steve Danuser. In the interview, Taliesin asked questions from the community about the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.
One of the final questions of the interview pertained to the progress of Dragonflight, and when players could expect to see alpha testing begin. Hazzikostas confirmed the expansion was “pretty far along” in the development process and that alpha testing would begin “Soon TM, but also soon without the TM.”
Hazzikostas has said similar things in other interviews. In a translated interview from German news site Buffed, Hazzikostas had stated the expansion has been in development for a couple of years at this point. While World of Warcraft is not ready to commit to a definitive release timetable, it may be closer than most assumed. It was this interview that drove Taliesin to ask about the expansion’s progress in the first place.
Further evidence was found in the data files for World of Warcraft’s Public Test Realm, where a new, encrypted build of the game was recently discovered. This build is almost certainly for Dragonflight and seems to corroborate Hazzikostas’ comment. If it does, the beta for Dragonflight, which began signups alongside the expansion's announcement, could begin a few months after, possibly as early September.
World of Warcraft fans are excited the Dragonflight alpha could begin soon. Many fans are thrilled with what they have seen on the expansion so far and can’t wait to explore the Dragon Isles. Dragonflight seems to have learned a great deal from the mistakes of Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands thus far, and the consistent updates and communication from Blizzard about the expansion have been a promising trend.
However, many fans are not ready to buy into Dragonflight just yet. Between a rocky release period with Shadowlands and the sexual assault and discrimination controversies surrounding Blizzard, many fans are scrutinizing World of Warcraft’s every move right now, if they haven’t given up on it entirely. The venerable MMORPG has a lot to prove to its fans, and it is fair to say that Dragonflight could make or break World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is available now on PC.
Source: Wowhead
