September 2026 will mark the 35th anniversary of one of the most influential video game companies of the Western hemisphere, Blizzard Entertainment.
To celebrate this occasion, I thought it would be fitting to look back on my journey of finally giving Blizzard's historic MMORPG, World of Warcraft, after nearly avoiding it for decades.
However, when World of Warcraft first debuted in 2004, I was put off by it. This was mainly because, as an antisocial teenager, I hated playing with other people, which was pretty detrimental, as World of Warcraft wasn't a solo-friendly game back then and encouraged players working together to survive even in outdoor content.
After decades of maturity, developing patience, learning to socialize, and learning how to play MMORPGs properly with the solo-friendly Final Fantasy XIV, I had decided to finally give World of Warcraft a shot in 2024 with its Mist of Pandaria Remix event.
During that time, World of Warcraft finally hooked me and had me playing it constantly all the way through up to the end of The War Within expansion. So, what has changed about World of Warcraft that finally made me like the game objectively, other than my teenaged self's immaturity not giving it a chance?
Let me tell you, as I count down (in no particular order) the 7 best things I love about World of Warcraft in 2026 and beyond.
A fast-paced and chaotic combat system
One of the things I love about World of Warcraft is its classic Tab-Target combat system. Compared to the slow, choreographed, spectacle-focused combat system of Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft is like a chaotic bar-room brawl.
It's fast-paced, there are tons of mechanics and enemy attacks to keep track of in raids and dungeons, and things can go wrong easily if you aren't paying attention and haven't practiced your ability rotation.
What also makes the combat system fun is how it offers creative freedom to players for avoiding certain death in battle, depending on your Class or Race.
Are you about to fall to your doom? Use a Warrior Class's Heroic Leap or a Goblin's Rocket Jump ability to cancel an enemy's knockback and get right back into the fight.
Are you being outnumbered by enemies while exploring? Use Feign Death as a Hunter class to get them to back off, or use a Tauren's War Stomp to stun them for a quick kill.
Has an unavoidable attack wiped out your raid? Use a Paladin's Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection to block the attack and finish off the boss when it's at 0.1 health left.
And that's just a few examples of the many ways you can have beating the living heck out of monsters and villains in World of Warcraft.
Challenging and epic Raid bosses to fight
Continuing from combat, what also helps elevate the fun factor of combat is the epic Raid dungeons you and your party will be pitted against.
This game has you face off all kinds of threats, including mad kings of the Undead, giant monsters, dragons, demonic alien invaders, hordes of money-grubbing goblins riding giant mechs, and city-sized eldritch horrors, among many others.
While I'm no Mythic-level raider, I've enjoyed these battles on Heroic-tier difficulty, figuring out their mechanics, coordinating with my teammates, and using the correct abilities at the right time to circumvent incoming attacks the boss wasn't expecting to decimate them while they're resetting their combat rotation.
They're tough, but most of the time, worth the effort for beating as Raid bosses usually yield the best gear, cosmetics, and mounts of the game.
Remix Events of past expansions
One thing that helped me get into World of Warcraft was its Mist of Pandaria Remix event.
It was a goofy but fun event that allowed players to revisit a past expansion while offering unique, limited-time cosmetic rewards and intentionally overpowered gear to give longtime players a chance to get revenge on raid bosses that made their lives miserable when the expansion first came out.
After seeing how popular Mists of Pandaria Remix was, Blizzard then decided to host another Remix event, this time for the fan-favorite expansion, Legion.
While Legion Remix wasn't as enjoyable as Mist of Pandaria Remix due to content being time-gated for weeks and servers being unplayable at launch, it was still a good time.
It allowed players to level up new characters in no time flat, offered new players a chance to experience the epic story of the Burning Legion's last major invasion of Azeroth, and it had some of the coolest cosmetic loot to grind for.
Not to mention, it had an awesome new feature called Heroic World Tier. This bumped up the difficulty of outdoor content by giving all enemies stat boosts and special new passive traits that made them a bigger threat.
Even normal, non-Elite/non-Rare, were no longer pushovers, and I had actually pay attention to my surroundings to make sure I wasn't about to get ganged up on by these buffed enemies.
I hope Heroic World Tier makes it in the main game someday, and I hope to see more Remix events of past expansions in the future (here's hoping for Wrath of the Lich King Remix or Warlords of Draenor remix).
Insanely diverse range of Races and Classes
Over 20 years of development have helped World of Warcraft create one of the biggest and most diverse rosters of playable classes in any MMORPG.
You've got Humans, Orcs, multi-flavors of elves and dwarves, Trolls, dragon-like Dracthyr, the otherworld Draenai, Goblins, Mechagnomes, were-wolf-like Worgen, Undead Forsaken, and my personal favourite - Tauren, to name a few.
As for Classes, we have Paladins, Warlocks, Mages, Warriors, Hunters, Evokers, Death Knights, Monks, Priests, Rogues, Shamans, Demon Hunters, and Druids.
What's more is that these classes have Specializations that alter their abilities to fit Tank, DPS, or Healer roles, along with talent trees to customize their powers to fit a player's preferred playstyle.
I have spent countless hours creating lots of character class+race combos to see which ones look the coolest, and no doubt will be spending more once the new Haranir Race and Demon Hunter Devourer Specialization drops in the next upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight.
Increased emphasis on solo-friendly content
One aspect that I love about World of Warcraft these days is its focus on introducing solo-friendly gameplay content for players who don't have time or interest in group-based content like Raids or PVP.
This started with the Delves in The War Within, a series of dungeons you can tackle solo with an NPC party member whose abilities role you can customize to your liking.
These Delve dungeons featured fun bosses, unique cosmetic rewards you won't find anywhere else in the game, and offered a viable alternative method of grabbing powerful gear for your character if you don't manage to get loot from Raids or Dungeons due to bad luck on your loot rolls.
So I'm excited to see more Delves being added in World of Warcraft: Midnight, along with a new interesting outdoor activity called The Hunt, where we will be contracted to hunt unique bosses in the overworld with various difficulty levels catering to solo or group players.
Endless cosmetics, gear, toys, and mounts to hunt for
World of Warcraft has all kinds of endgame content for players to indulge themselves in. Challenging players in PVP content, taking on Raid bosses on Mythic-tier difficulty, getting the fastest times clearing Mythic+ dungeons, or hunting for achievements and titles.
My endgame goal, however, is cosmetic hunting. World of Warcraft has endless amounts of weapons and armor you can transform your current gear into through its intuitive Transmogrification system.
In addition, there are tons of goofy (and sometimes useful) toys with special effects, capturable battle pets, and majestic mounts to fly around the world with up for grabs, that you can show off to your friends with.
Now with the addition of the long-awaited Player Housing feature, I'll have even more cosmetics to hunt down to decorate my virtual home with.
The Tree of Hope Guild
Multiplayer games live or die depending on the players you interact with, and World of Warcraft has its share of mean-spirited players out there that can ruin the entire game for you.
But if you manage to group up with like-minded individuals who have had experience playing the game and are willing to help newcomers, then you will be in for some of the best co-op gaming experiences ever.
So I thank the Earth Mother that I managed to find myself as a member of The Tree of Hope Guild. It has some of the most helpful and kind players I've ever met in any game, led by the smart and ever-patient Tauren Druid, Peacemoon.
If it weren't for this guild's guidance and tolerance when I got salty during bad runs, I would've never stuck around after playing the Mist of Pandaria Remix event or been able to clear the challenging raids of The War Within.
So, to all the members of Tree of Hope, I sincerely thank you for helping me learn to at last enjoy World of Warcraft, and I hope to continue playing with you going into World of Warcraft: Midnight and beyond.
Here's to more adventures within the World of Warcraft
There you have my top 7 reasons why I love playing World of Warcraft in 2026 and will continue do so for the foreseeable future.
While I do have some concern about World of Warcraft: Midnight's class design balance changes (which the developers have stated is NOT being dumbed down for consoles), I have a feeling things will work out once the expansion launches.
Either way, I can't wait to play World of Warcraft: Midnight and experience all its new gameplay systems when it releases on March 3, 2026, on PC via Battle.net.
Will you be joining the fight to stop Xal'atath in World of Warcraft: Midnight? Or are there other Blizzard Entertainment games you're more interested in, like Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2?
If you have any thoughts on the matter, let us know in the comments below.
Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
