World of Warcraft: The War Within is out—kicking off with banger zones, stupendous side quests, and early access gripes

World of Warcraft: The War Within has launched—although, if you had enough dough to shell out for the early access, you've already been playing it for a few days. And while it's early on in the expansion's lifecycle (I'm about two-thirds of the way through the second zone myself, as a complete-all-side quests fiend) things seem to be going pretty well.

The expansion represents a few major gear-shifts from Blizzard, angling for more detailed storytelling with better villains, the ability to engage with most of its story content solo (yes, even raids) and the further development of evergreen mechanics like Warbands to shore up the game experience.

So far, so good. The game's subreddit has quite a few early birds singing its praises already based on, quite literally, vibes: «It's probably recency bias, but this might be one of my favourite expansion continents of all time,» writes one player alongside a cacophony of praise for Hallowfall, the expansion's third zone.

Even the Ringing Deeps—perhaps the least visually striking of the zones—has its fans: "[I] went in expecting to loathe the Ringing Deeps and it was actually kinda a banger," writes user Jibbles2020, and as someone plugging through that place myself I'm in full agreement. The Kobolds are fun, but I've also been enjoying seeing just how different the surface Earthen are to their work-obsessed subterranean siblings. It's all genuinely solid worldbuilding, shored up by some unexpectedly heartfelt character work.

What's really impressing me thus far are the zones' side quests. I shan't mention anything beyond names for spoiler reasons, but I very much recommend helping out Korgran in the Isle of Dorn. It's a moving exploration that makes me feel like WoW's found an emotional storytelling core that's been missing (or, at the least, inconsistent) for a while.

The story overall feels like a step up, and I'm not alone in that. Preach, a long-standing WoW YouTuber with a deep investment in the game, has felt