The Burning Legion is back in the next expansion for World of Warcraft, which will raise the level cap to 110 and add a new hero class, Demon Hunter, to the longrunning MMORPG. It’s called World of Warcraft: Legion, and it’s packed full of Warcraft lore from obvious to archaic.
At a live presentation at Gamescom in Germany today, Blizzard showed off the new expansion pack, first with a teaser. That guy with the hood is Gul’dan, an orc shaman with a whole lot of history in the realm of Warcraft.
After the teaser, Blizzard played this sizzle reel, officially announcing World of Warcraft: Legion and showing off some of the expansion pack’s new features:
During a stage presentation after showing off these videos, Blizzard went on to elaborate more about what WoW players will see and do in Legion.
For starters, before the new expansion even launches, Blizzard says players will have to face hordes of demons in a zone called the Tomb of Sargeras, which will be a familiar name to anyone who’s familiar with Warcraft lore. Dalaran will be back as the main player city hub, and Blizzard is finally letting players go to the Emerald Nightmare, a corrupted section of the game’s Emerald Dream.
Legion will introduce a new area called The Broken Isles:
Alleria and Turalyon are coming back, too, Blizzard says. New artifacts in the expansion pack include Ashbringer and Doomhammer. They’re really going all out with lore for this one.
The official Legion website also went live this afternoon, if you want a full blowout on the new pack’s characters and features. In addition to all the features and lore they mentioned during today’s presentation, Blizzard is offering class-specific order halls and followers, a level-100 character boost, and a totally overhauled PVP progression system.
No word on release date yet, but there’ll be a beta this year.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.