Here at Kotaku, we try to avoid writing stories based on vague statements from developers about things they have got planned in the future, but this is too interesting not to share: turns out Blizzard is constantly thinking about the idea of World of Warcraft II.
Strange thought, right? A sequel to an ever-evolving online game that has lasted a decade and still has millions and millions of players?
Game Informer asked World of Warcraft game director Tom Chilton about the prospect of a sequel at Gamescom in Germany this week, and he gave a candid answer: “Definitely. It’s something we have talked about. It’s something we have talked about for ten years. I think that there are a lot of challenges there in seeing how World of Warcraft II relates to World of Warcraft, do they live alongside each other, does one feed into the other, what is that product, etc. These are challenges that have to be figured out before that becomes a reality.”
Releasing a numbered sequel to the biggest MMORPG in history would be a surprising move for the veteran developers, who plan to launch a fifth expansion to the game this November. The expansion, Warlords of Draenor, will give an aesthetic overhaul to World of Warcraft’s ten-year-old character models, making the game feel more fitting for 2014.
At one point, Blizzard was also working on a multiplayer game codenamed Titan, though the company has since announced that they were rebooting work on that MMORPG, and its fate remains up in the air.
The thought of a WoW 2 is strange, but not unprecedented. Japanese publisher Square Enix simultaneously maintains Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, which both have active playerbases — though neither comes close to World of Warcraft in both size and cultural dominance.
Comments
29 responses to “‘World Of Warcraft II’ Is Actually A Thing That Could Happen”
Further proof that blizzard is a 3 trick pony, release a new IP already. Is there any other dev as big as Blizzard who have rested in their laurels quite so much?
Noting that titan has been confirmed to be a new IP quite a few times. But yeah I agree.
Yeah but nothings come of Titan yet…
Exactly what @weresmurf said, sure Titan is MEANT to be a new IP, but does Titan really exist?
I’m thinking they realised a pure subscription based mmo might not cut it, or wildstar was too close or something.
I think it revolved heavily around something like diablo3 real money ah – they used d3 to test the waters with it. People hated it and they went back to the drawing board.
Yeah. I didnt really have a problem with the d3 AH, it was more the fact ud never get loot good for ur class, which was forcing u to use the AH. Then you couldnt afford anything without using rl money unless u farmed like a hardcore.
A lot of companies run with the success of very limited brands, so why not games?
Blizzard’s dedication to Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo has meant that these games have an amazing amount of backstory which is rich and detailed. I mean look some of their user manuals, they were bursting with information and are still great to read.
At least they aren’t milking the IP’s like a certain FPS brand….
Nintendo?
Haha good point
I don’t understand this 3 trick pony thing. What other studio that self publishes is pumping out multiple titles from different properties that are the same or similar quality as Blizzard? I can name two, Nintendo and Valve. Hell, how many studios have even three properties that they continuously expand upon? Most focus on one and you’d still struggle to compare them in the same light as titles from Blizzard.
Would a new property be awesome? Definitely, but to say they can’t do more than three things as if it’s some sort of weakness is strange considering what almost every e else does.
Yeah Coca Cola, release a new pine-tasting drink!
I’m just sitting here waiting for warcraft 4 🙁
WoW 2: We’re Doubling Your Subscription Fees
You know a while back I SAID this and was pretty told by a few on here “Noooo blizzard will never do a part 2” that I was stupid for thinking it etc…
Glad Im proven right. Money makes the world spin. Blizzards just another company these days trying to stay afloat.
The problem (for them) of doing a WoW 2 is what do they do with WoW? Do they stop producing content for it? If they do then sooner or later it’s player numbers will die. If they do keep producing content for WoW then people who play WoW have less incentive to move to WoW2. Why would long term players throw away literally years of hard earned gear and leveling?
They’d have to either do something so amazing and innovative that everyone would *want* to move from WoW to WoW2 or they splinter their player base and run into problems with server numbers and balancing costs. Either that or there needs to be some way to “port” your characters from WoW to WoW2. But then how does that work if they’re trying to get people to start from scratch?
I suspect WoW2 is in the “no until WoW subscriber numbers are so low we *have* to do it” basket at Blizzard.
What do they do with WOW? They do what they did with Everquest, Guildwars etc. They let it run concurrently side by side for a while until subscribers drop to a point where the game is no longer profitable for them or they feel they need to move on. The game is 10 years old at this point, for them not to would be silly at some point.
What would they have to do that was ‘amazing’ for people to move from WoW to WoW2?
First don’t call it ‘World of Warcraft 2’, call it something else. Second, just make it. The fans will come over for the advanced graphics, the furthered story, the characters etc. As long as they don’t veer too far from what came along in WoW they’d be onto another sure fire hit.
The character thing can be easily beaten by saying ‘It’s set a hundred years after WoW so your characters are gone.’ Easy.
Chances are, that WoW was so succesful because it hit at the right time, with the right formula and the right combination of things that just aren’t going to happen again for them. When WoW hit, we had never truly seen a game like that, there had been lesser ones but none quite as good. Now, they’ll have to do something fantastic.
Like someone said below, just make Universe of Starcraft’ or ‘Starcraft Universe’ or something instead, much simpler.
Here’s the thing, there is no way I’m going to jump to a new game and reinvest 100s (probably 1000s) of hours leveling characters up again. Maybe I’m not indicative of the average WOW gamer but if they created WOW2 and didn’t update WOW I’d just stop playing and gain a large percentage of my life back every week.
In essence, they face the same problem Wildstar, Age of Conan, etc have. It’d be a different game you have to start from scratch. Do you do that, do you keep playing your existing game or do you quit?
I stand by my comment that they need to do something amazing with it to consider scrapping further WoW development.
Oh, and not calling it WoW2 kinda completely overlooks the fact that we’re explicitly talking about what would wow2 have to do… 0_o
Wut da FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU……….
That’d be amazing, I hope they do.
I would be happy to get addicted again but preferably to World of Starcraft.
The OBVIOUS MMO people are dying for from Blizzard, the one that people would *play the shit out of* but they haven’t done…
I would throw money at the screen despite all the things Blizzard have done that have driven me away in more recent times.
Many of us would my friend. Many of us would. It’d be the one MMO to get me back into MMO’s…
Pssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh. Warcraft 4 RTS please, can’t see what they’d do to make a sequel mmo any more interesting, especially modern Blizzard.
Pretty much? WOW operates off the lore of WC1 – 3. They should make WC4 before they even look into this to further the lore a bit… more….
ergh too many rhyming words.
As someone who never touched WoW out of fear (of addiction) I have to admit I do wonder what all the fuss is about.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been considering creating an account to have a gander. No friends to play with is a huge turn off for me though.
Probably not a great time to jump in to be honest. The next expansion is only a couple months away and will have major revamps to a ton of stuff – including important things like the abilities your characters use. Meaning you’ll just be getting the hang of it and you’ll have to relearn it over again.
I’d suggest if you are actually keen to try it out wait for the 6.0 patch (probably a month or so before the expansion actually launches) because most if not all the new systems will be in place then. So you’ll only have to learn stuff once.
its boring