WoW Factor: BlizzCon 2026 paints a bright future for retail World of Warcraft

While everyone is all abuzz with the announcement of World of Warcraft Forever, mainline WoW was by no means left out of the BlizzCon announcements. We got a lot of info about Midnight‘s upcoming patches, and even a small tease of the next expansion.

The meatiest news is around Midnight‘s final major content patch, 12.2: Eclipse. It will take us back under the earth, to the literal heart of Azeroth, for a confrontation with Xal’atath at the Worldcore.

I have expected a climactic battle with Xal’atath at the Worldcore from the moment we were introduced to the Coreway at the start of The War Within, but I thought it would be the end of the Worldsoul Saga. It’s pretty surprising that it’s happening now.

We’ve also had confirmation we’re fighting Xal’atath herself as a boss in the Worldcore raid. It is possible she escapes, but this is definitely feeling like the end is nigh for Xal’atath’s role in the story. It occurs to me this is the Worldsoul Saga, not the Xal’atath Saga, but it would still feel strange for her to be the central villain of two thirds of the trilogy but absent from its climax.

Still, however it plays out, I’m excited for a showdown with the Harbinger. As someone with a deep attachment to Azeroth as a setting, having her personified as a living worldsoul feels like a really meaningful piece of meta narrative, and any time we’re fighting for her directly my hype meter goes up several notches. I’ve had a lot of criticisms of Midnight‘s story so far, but I am cautiously optimistic Eclipse is going to ensure it ends on a high note.

Xal’atath’s dialogue in the trailer did confirm my long held theory that she is not truly a champion of the Void’s cause, but just in it for herself. I think that’s a lot more interesting than her being just another cosmic horror. I’m not a huge fan of the idea of her once being an ordinary mortal (which even at the time was implied to not necessarily be the truth), but I do like the angle of her being a former underdog who is determined to never be in that position again.

Aside from continuing the story, Eclipse brings all the expected features: a new zone; the subterranean Mantle Vault; a new dungeon in the form of Thraegar’s Stand; new outdoor events, delves, and prey hunts; and of course the climactic Worldcore raid. Nothing surprising there, but all good things to have.

More unexpected is the news of our first legendary item in quite some time, an intellect dagger called Midnight’s Edge. It looks suspiciously similar to the dagger we first found Xal’atath in, but Blizzard has hastened to clarify it’s not the same one. Still, considering we know the quest chain starts after completing the Worldcore raid, it’s hard not to get the feeling we’re stuffing Xally back into a knife. The Once and Future Knaifu.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Legendary quests often have great storytelling, and obviously getting to wield super OP weapons is always fun, but the quest chains are usually horrendously grindy and inaccessible to all but the sweatiest players. Plus, with the relentless pace of WoW‘s content rollout these days, we’re not even going to get to use Midnight’s Edge very long. Considering it will probably take at least a couple months to actually get it, we’re only looking at let’s say three months or so of using it before The Last Titan arrives and renders it vendor trash.

Speaking of the next expansion, we got a brief teaser trailer for that as well, showing a Titan construct causing a ruckus in Northrend. This furthers the impression that Xal’atath is stepping aside as the main villain; it seems like the Titans are pulling an Algalon and deciding that Azeroth is beyond saving.

Like a lot of WoW‘s recent plot beats, positioning the Titans as antagonists is something that I think is fine as a concept but isn’t being executed well. We’ve known since Wrath of the Lich King introduced Algalon that the Titans have a dark side, but it used to be to more nuanced. The idea was the Titans are essentially a force of good, but they think on such a grand cosmic scale that the lives of individuals mean nothing. We’re ants to them. However, Dragonflight and The War Within have positioned the Titans not as distant and incomprehensible gods but as cruel, petty, micromanaging tyrants, and that’s far less interesting.

I am getting ahead of myself. There’s still lots more to look forward to in the current expansion. Another big piece of news was the announcement of a new alternate game mode, Talebound, coming in 12.1.7. Talebound is an action combat roguelike mode with decidedly spooky theming.

Mostly this is sounds very cool. Plunderstorm’s take on action combat in WoW‘s engine was a bit janky, but it was still a fun change of pace, and while I doubt we’ll ever see a transition to full action combat in the main game, I’m happy to see more experiments with it. My one concern is that a roguelike sounds like it has the potential to be very grindy, so it might be a bit rough trying to get all the rewards you want from it, but that will all come down to tuning.

12.1.7 will also include a new Lorewalking campaign around Thrall. That’s interesting to me because Lorewalking can sometimes be a de facto tease of upcoming content, so focusing on Thrall now raises the possibility he might be returning to a bigger role in the story soon. Thrall has always felt like the closest thing to a main character the Warcraft universe has, and I’ll never be unhappy to see more of him.

Looking further down the line to 2027, 12.2.5 and 12.2.7 will focus on new quests and world events, no doubt to set up the next expansion, and then we’ll be getting out next expansion remix, Wrath of the Lich King.

I know a lot of people have wanted Wrath Remix, but the idea leaves me a bit cold (no pun intended). I’m not even sure what the point of Wrath Remix is. Is anyone still lacking any transmogs from such an old expansion? Does anyone still want gear that looks that dated? If they added new cosmetics as rewards, it’s a more appealing prospect, but I’m not sure how much resources Blizzard would want to put toward that considering remixes are clearly meant to be a way to keep players engaged with limited development resources.

Maybe not a popular opinion, but I really want Shadowlands Remix more than anything else. Say what you will about the expansion as a whole, but it did have amazing art design, and it’s packed with cool cosmetics, but they’re often agonizing to acquire on account of how miserable Shadowlands‘ systems were. A Remix would be the perfect opportunity to make all those sweet transmogs available in a less painful way.

Aside from those bigger ticket items, we’ve got lots of smaller updates coming over the next few months as well. Housing is getting a lot of quality of life improvements, but nothing to address any of my main complaints with the feature, much to my frustration.

In more positive news, the Paladin class is being expanded to more races (Night Elves, Forsaken, and Darkspear Trolls) in 12.2, which feels long overdue. Most exciting, though, is the news of another major transmog update coming in patch 12.2.5: Transmog will no longer be restricted by armour type.

This also feels long overdue, but it’s so great to get confirmation it’s finally coming. This is going to massively increase the potential for fashion customization. I’m already running through all the new looks I could give my characters by mixing and matching from different armour types. I just wish it was coming sooner; unironically this might be the most exciting announcement of all.

Subsequent interviews have confirmed class restrictions on appearances will remain. That’s not surprising, but still a little disappointing. I understand the desire to preserve class identity, but since there are already class-agnostic tier lookalike pieces, you can already get another class’s look… just in incomplete form. Feels like it should be all or nothing. If you can get some tier set appearances from another class, why not allow them all? The one restriction I do support keeping is on heritage armour. It would feel weird for a race’s heritage look to be available to everyone. They’re too tied to the unique lore and identity of each race.

It looks like there’s a lot for retail WoW players to look forward to in the next year. I remain a bit concerned about how the story is going to be executed based on how Midnight has gone to date, but at least on paper what’s coming looks super cool, and if you don’t care about the story, everything else looks great. Forever might have the spotlight right now, but it’s clear the mainline game is not being neglected, and its fans have lots to be happy about.

War never changes, but World of Warcraft does, with over two decades of history and a huge footprint in the MMORPG industry. Join MOP’s WoW fans for new installments of WoW Factor as they examine the enormous MMO, how it interacts with the larger world of online gaming, and what’s new in the worlds of Azeroth and Draenor.