Expansions · Legion to now
Power designed to expire arrives in 2016, fails twice in public, gets withdrawn — and then Blizzard commits three expansions ahead at BlizzCon 2023.
5 pieces · all eleven expansions
BlizzCon is where the announcements land, and where several of the decisions documented on this site were first stated out loud.
Photo: Tahir Xəlfəquliyev / Pexels
Artifact weapons were designed to be taken away. That was the point, and it became the template.
Photo: Blackcurrant Great / Pexels
Start here
A weapon players spent two years building was always going to be taken away. Legion made that the feature, not the flaw.
ExpansionsAzerite Armour and the System That Required Three RevisionsThree structural revisions in three patches: 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3. The revision history is the record.
ExpansionsShadowlands: Four Covenants and a Decision You Could Not UndoFour Covenants, one choice, and a switching cost high enough that patch 9.1.5 had to undo it.
ExpansionsDragonflight Brought Back the Talent Tree Warlords RemovedThe tree Cataclysm stripped to six passive choices came back in 2022 with more nodes than the original had.
ExpansionsThe War Within and the Three-Expansion Bet Blizzard Made at BlizzCon 2023Announced at BlizzCon in November 2023 as the first of three. Blizzard had never committed that far ahead before.