Blizzard has announced the third expansion to World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
It’s official, folks. Chris Metzen took the stage at BlizzCon ’09 to unveil Cataclysm, the new expansion to World of Warcraft, calling it “earthshattering.” Looks like all the rumors leaked beforehand are true: A disaster from the Maelstrom erupts, changing the face of Azeroth as we know it: We see the Barrens divided by lava, Mulgore on fire, huge waterfalls and whirlpools in Darkshore. Desolace is all verdant and lush now. Entire zones have been reshaped.
New races, as rumored: Goblins of the South Seas are forced from their homes and find allies in the Horde. The Worgen (werewolf)-cursed humans of Gilneas are beset by the Forsaken and are approached by the Night Elves – remember the whole Scythe of Elune chain? Yeah – to join the Alliance.
More new stuff: The level cap is being raised to 85, you’ll be able to use flying mounts in Azeroth. There are also new Race/Class combos: We only see Troll Druids, Tauren Paladins, Gnome Priests, and Human Hunters, but there are more beyond that.
With only 5 new levels, there’s going to be a new way to advance your character – it’s called Path of the Titans, but we don’t know anything beyond that. New secondary skill – Archaeology. They’re retooling some of the old fan favorite dungeons (Heroic Deadmines, Heroic Shadowfang Keep are mentioned) and of course adding a bunch of new instances and hundreds of new quests.
Supremely evil dragon Deathwing – remember him from Warcraft II? – is the Big Bad of this expansion, like Arthas is to WotLK. Everything looks pretty damn cool.
We’ll find out more at the upcoming WoW Preview Panel.
