'World Of Warcraft': Here's What's Coming In 'Dragonflight' Expansion

The reveal for “World of Warcraft’s” upcoming expansion showed off some exciting new features, including a new playable race, a race-exclusive character class and tamable dragons with a new and improved flight mechanic.

“World of Warcraft: Dragonflight” once again calls upon the heroes of Azeroth to embark on a new journey. This time, players will be able to visit the Dragon Isles in order to stop an emerging threat.

The Dragon Isles is a vast new chunk of playable space with five distinct zones. It also serves as the home for the Dracthyr, the new race coming in “Dragonflight.”

As expected, the Dracthyr are a race of sentient humanoid dragons. They are also the only race in the game that’s able to use the new Evoker class. However, Dracthyr have no other class choice apart from the Evoker, which somewhat limits what players can do. This is similar to the Demon Hunter class, which is restricted to Blood Elves and Night Elves.

The Evoker class was designed to go hand-in-hand with the Dracthyr, according to lead narrative designer Steve Danuser in their interview with Polygon.

He said that the way Evokers fight makes full use of the Dractyr’s anatomy, from their wings to their tails and their ability to breathe fire. Danuser also said that Evoker/Dractyr combi is “tighter than anything we’ve done before.”

“Dragonflight” will also introduce Dragonriding, which is a new form of aerial traversal. The expansion will allow players to train and ride their own drake mounts. Leveling drakes will unlock special skills and maneuvers that will help players soar across the Dragon Isles more easily.

Dragonriding bears some similarities to “Guild Wars 2’s” Griffon and Skyscale mounts. Drakes will be able to dive down to gain momentum before unfurling their wings for lateral flight.

“Dragonflight” will also introduce some new and improved systems to “World of Warcraft” itself, including new talent trees, professions and streamlined HUD and UI.

Blizzard didn’t specify an exact release date for the expansion yet, but players can opt-in to the beta via the official website. An alpha test is expected in the future.