A Closer Look at Delves, the New Endgame Pillar in The War Within

• Author: Luxrah
• Date: November 4, 2023
• Updated: November 4, 2023
• Expansion: World of Warcraft

It’s day two of Blizzcon, and Blizzard has given some more details about delves in their WoW Deep Dive panel. This new game mode offers quick bites of content that can be completed with 1-5 players.

Ion Hazzikostas re-emphasized that the goal with this game mode is flexibility: you’ll be able to play solo or with a partner or a whole party, and with any group composition you like. He also said the mode will be a new pillar of the game, a way for more casual players to have progression as a “capstone to the outdoor world experience.”

He cited some previous experiments with small group and solo content, such as Torghast, scenarios, and island expeditions, and said that the goal with delves is to create something that stands on its own in parallel with other endgame content, but isn’t required if your focus is on other areas like raiding or dungeons.

Delves will be a seamless part of the world, and you’ll enter them without a loading screen. Hazzikostas talked about how having delves as part of the world allows them to break the traditional formula for instanced content. So we should see some interesting formats for this content.

As an example, he described a delve that is covered with a magical darkness where you must carry a candle and maintain its light, fueling it with other candles that you’ll loot from kobolds throughout the dungeon. He also described a different delve where the gravity isn’t normal and you can use mushrooms as jump pads to get around.

In each delve, you’ll kill a few enemies, solve a puzzle or two, and eventually reach a treasure room, where some of the loot will be freely available while a couple of chests will require you to acquire keys through other outdoor content.

Delves in The War Within

We got a list of the delves that will be available in each zone at launch:

• Isle of Dorn:
  • Earthcrawl Mines
  • Kriegval’s Rest
  • Fungal Folly
• The Ringing Deeps:
  • The Waterworks
  • The Dead Pit
• Hallowfall
  • Skittering Breach
  • Nightfall Sanctum
  • The Sinkhole
  • Mycomancer Cavern
• Azj-Kahet
  • The Spiral Weave
  • Rak-Rethan Abyss
  • Deepwalker Hold
• One more mystery location!

Rewards Available Through Delves

We also got a peek at some of the rewards available through delves, including some fun hats and a customizable mount! This mount will be pieced together over the course of the season. We can see from the concept art that there are many different options that can be applied to it. These can be customized the same way that we currently customize dragonriding mounts.

New World Row in the Great Vault

Along with delves, we’ll also be getting a new World row in the Great Vault, replacing the PVP row. PVP will be getting a separate rewards system. This row’s rewards will be unlocked by completing delves and/or world activities each week.