No Final Fantasy 14-style overhaul for World of Warcraft
A hint of disappointment is sweeping through the ranks of World of Warcraft fans. Those who were hoping for a graphical overhaul in the style of Final Fantasy 14 will now be proven wrong. Holly Longdale, Executive Producer at WoW, is tempering expectations.
Although World of Warcraft, despite its age, remains the leading MMORPG, it can't really compete graphically with Square Enix's Final Fantasy 14. The magnificent world of Eorzea shines like a sparkling diamond next to the rather chunky, cartoonish Azeroth. However, a similarly massive overhaul like "A Realm Reborn" is not planned for WoW.
No Restart for World of Warcraft
A few months ago, I wrote extensively about why we need a WoW 2. While Longdale promises that the WorldSoul Saga will narratively revive the "connection" to WoW that we missed in Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, she also clearly confirms that a FF14-like restart is not planned.
"It hasn't been part of the discussion lately," she explains in an exclusive BlizzCon interview. "We have all kinds of ideas in the wake of the [Microsoft] acquisition, but something like that is not currently on our roadmap."
Interestingly, she uses the word "lately" here. The success of FF14 after the restart is impressive, and it would have been interesting to see if Blizzard had similar plans. Especially considering that WoW Classic has replicated the vanilla game almost identically, a graphical overhaul of Azeroth would certainly have been intriguing.
A Look Ahead to The War Within
Regardless of old or new graphics, The War Within seems to be something truly special - especially with the possibility of Sylvanas Windrunner's return. If you're excited to dive into a bold new World of Warcraft, we have a list of the best WoW addons for your journey, as well as a WoW Dragonflight tier list to get you up to date on the latest PvE and PvP metas.
