Dragonflight, Plunderstorm, WoW Classic, WoW Classic Hardcore, Season of Discovery, and soon Mists of Pandaria Remix. There are more ways to play World of Warcraft than ever, with new content arriving almost every week. In the midst of all of it, WoW Classic progression realms are about to transition into their fourth era. Many of us are wondering if this will be the end of the road or if Cataclysm Classic can find its niche.
Cataclysm is easily the most divisive expansion in WoW’s history, both literally and figuratively separating the old world from the new. WoW Classic originally appealed to players who were eager to return to Azeroth as they remembered it 20 years ago, before Deathwing forever altered the landscape and the game became saturated with collectibles. While Cataclysm is only the third of the nine expansions that World of Warcraft has seen to date, it represents a major step away from its predecessors. It was also the first expansion that saw a decline in active subscriptions during its original run. So will existing WoW Classic players stick around? And if not, who will play Cataclysm Classic?
The Many Worlds of Warcraft
Blizzard seems to be hedging their bets these days, or perhaps just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Shadowlands and Season of Mastery were major disappointments, as recently shown in a presentation at the Game Developer Conference. Season of Mastery doesn’t appear on their chart, but it was released in November 2021, right where the subscription numbers bottom out. We’ve added it in the edited image below.
For two years it seemed like the company had given up on the idea of doing anything else with WoW Classic. Classic Era realms were left to sit collecting dust. Progression realms were set to march their way through the expansions until they reached some sort of natural end point, possibly Cataclysm.
But then we saw the launch of WoW Classic Hardcore in August of last year, which reinvigorated the Classic community. The game mode likely cost Blizzard very little to get up and running. The work of restoring Vanilla WoW had already been done years before. Its success fueled a push for more cheap and easy reworkings of existing content, leading to the other surprise releases we’ve seen over the last several months: Season of Discovery, Plunderstorm, and soon the Pandaria Remix. Since BlizzCon in November, World of Warcraft has seen a major shift toward a more modern live service game model, keeping players engaged with smaller batches of shiny new content. And all indications are that it’s working.
Keeping Players Invested
But what do all of these new options mean for Cataclysm Classic? There are a couple of different ways of looking at it: either these additional game modes are going to splinter the community and draw players away from Cataclysm, or they’re going to attract players who were already looking for something else entirely. In the latter case, those players may also wind up dabbling in Cataclysm.
It’s worth examining why people play (and keep playing) World of Warcraft in the first place. In my experience, there are three things that keep people coming back to the game:
- Community. While there is a strong contingent of solo players in World of Warcraft, the biggest determinant of whether someone will start or continue playing is whether they have friends, family, or guildmates who are also playing.
- Continuity. World of Warcraft has been around for a long time, and many players have invested decades of our lives into our characters. We’re attached to them as reminders of our accomplishments, good times, and even the long hours we spent farming and grinding.
- Content. Whenever new content is released for the game, there’s a mass return of players who want to experience it. This pull isn’t as strong as the other two on its own, but the combination makes it the most significant:
- Community – When a few players come back for new content, it encourages their friends and guildies to play again as well.
- Continuity – Players like to feel like they’re keeping up with the game and maintaining the characters and progress they’ve been attached to for so long.
With all of that in mind, Cataclysm Classic stands to benefit from anything that draws players back to World of Warcraft at large. Those players will continue to subscribe to the game, and when they get bored with their current preference or just curious about the game’s other options, they’ll float over to Cataclysm — along with their friends.
By staggering their releases, Blizzard hopes to keep players subscribed and circulating between different versions of the game, feeding each mode with a regular influx of activity and keeping the overall community healthy. It’s a safer bet for Cataclysm, which doesn’t have its own rabid fan base like the previous Classic eras. Other Retail and Classic players will be able to dip their toes in the game, and some may find that they like what it has to offer and want to stick around for the duration.
Cataclysm’s Appeal as a Middle Ground
Each version of the game targets a different segment of the player base. WoW Classic Hardcore appeals to Vanilla WoW purists who are looking for a new challenge. Season of Discovery is there for players who want to experiment with something a little different by trying their hand at theorycrafting in a version of Vanilla WoW that hasn’t already been “solved” for 20 years. The Pandaria Remix will allow players to see all of the content from that expansion while still enjoying all of the quality of life features of modern WoW.
Meanwhile, Cataclysm falls neatly in the middle between Classic and modern WoW. Players will have access to account-wide Collections like we do in Dragonflight, allowing all of our characters to access every unique mount, pet, toy, and transmogrification appearance we’ve acquired throughout Classic WoW. At the same time, these collections are much smaller than they are in the modern era, so each item feels a little more valuable. (At a certain point when you have hundreds of “unique” mounts and pets, you don’t even look at most of them anymore.)
The game overall is a lot less overwhelming than modern WoW. There aren’t nine expansions’ worth of content competing for your attention, each with their own underutilized or forgotten systems and more items than anyone could possibly hoard even with a dozen bank alts. But it’s also a lot more accessible than Vanilla. The revamp of Azeroth brings everything in the original game up to the same level of detail as Outland and Northrend. You can fly everywhere. Quests are a lot more streamlined and convenient, such as dungeon quests being available inside the dungeons instead of scattered across the world.
All of that is to say that Cataclysm may have something for everyone, even if it’s not anyone’s favorite expansion. Its appeal can be broad if not deep, especially for casual players. Season of Discovery is likely to lose casual players as the content gets more complex and the raids get bigger. In Cataclysm, you can continue raiding with a smaller 10-player team like we saw in Phases 1 & 2 of SoD and you’ll see the same loot you would see in the 25-player versions.
What Does the Pandaria Remix Mean for the Future of WoW Classic?
The surprise announcement of WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria adds a lot of question marks around Blizzard’s future plans for WoW Classic. Mists of Pandaria would be the next expansion to follow Cataclysm in the cycle, and with Cataclysm on a sped-up content schedule, we’re less than a year out from the point at which we would expect to see Pandaria replace it. At first glance, the choice to bring back this particular expansion’s content at this particular time is a little baffling.
There are a couple of possible reasons why Blizzard would do this, with the most obvious being that they don’t plan to release a Mists of Pandaria Classic at all. Their internal data and years of experience with player behavior patterns probably shows them what you can plainly see if you log in to WoW Classic today, which is that the game mode has already been in decline for a long time. While every launch brings a large influx of players back to the game, the tapering-off has been sharper each time, and Cataclysm could see the biggest dip yet. Perhaps Blizzard already has a different direction in mind for WoW Classic, such as more seasonal content like Season of Discovery. Or maybe they plan to retire it altogether, bringing it all into the modern game through Remixes and Timewalking.
On the other hand, the faster content pace for Cataclysm indicates an interest in keeping WoW Classic alive by keeping players interested in the game for the long haul. The Pandaria Remix could be intended as a reminder that more cool things are coming down the line for WoW Classic, even if Cataclysm isn’t quite your cup of tea. Or again, as I said earlier in this article, Blizzard could just be throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. They may not have a plan at all right now.
The Cataclysm Pre-Patch arrives on April 30th, and Cataclysm Classic will launch on May 20th. We expect to see the Pandaria Remix in modern WoW somewhere in between. Strange timing indeed, but we’ll see how it all plays out and where Cataclysm lands when the dust settles.
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