World Of Warcraft At 20 Is The Same And Increasingly Unrecognizable, And That's By Design

World of Warcraft is celebrating its 20-year anniversary today, November 23, 2024. Below, we talk with key developers about the journey to make the game what it is today, and the future ahead.

Two decades ago, World of Warcraft burst onto the scene and changed gaming forever. The once-niche MMORPG genre became mainstream overnight. Blizzard took ideas that came before in games like Everquest and refined, polished, and further elaborated on them until what was left would appeal to the gaming masses. The result was "WoW" becoming a household name and a cultural phenomenon in a way most video game creators can only dream of, with millions and millions of players willing to pay a $15-a-month subscription to this day for the privilege of continuing their digital adventures in the fantasy world of Azeroth.

It's hardly a surprise the WoW that first launched 20 years ago on November 23, 2004, while technically still the same game, is vastly different to the current version of the MMO players play today. Its most recent expansion alone, The War Within, added account-wide progression and a new endgame activity for solo players, two ideas that would have been unheard of even a decade ago but which have been received with near-universal praise from the game's community.

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