World of Warcraft: Midnight Review: A Good Expansion That Needed a Little More Time to Cook

6 days ago 7

Published Mar 26, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT

Jake brings two decades of experience with him, having covered major industry events, breaking news, one-on-one interviews, and more.

When he's not playing World of Warcraft, he's usually on the hunt for good food and a refreshing beer to wash it down.

World of Warcraft: Midnight is a perfect example of what happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

For everything good the expansion does with its zones, endgame content, and revamps that make upgrading your gear easier than ever before, there's something frustrating to balance it out.

World of Warcraft Midnight Windrunner Spire

World Of Warcraft: Midnight's New Mechanic Was Inspired By Fans' Surprising Reaction To Delves

World of Warcraft: Midnight's Prey mechanic was inspired by players' excitement over the idea of being hunted during Delves.

The end result is that World of Warcraft's newest expansion is full of promise and potential, hinting at a bright future for the long-running MMORPG. However, it feels like Blizzard routinely cannot get out of its own way.

The more I spend with Midnight, the more I enjoy it, but every now and then, something comes up that drags me completely out of it. And I'm still playing Classic Mists of Pandaria, so even if I'm getting turned off by something Midnight is doing, that should tell you something.

Midnight's Story is a Mixed Bag

It feels weird to start with the story in an MMORPG, but that's where we are in 2026.

To Blizzard's credit, they've done an excellent job in the storytelling department since Dragonflight, something that was desperately needed following the disaster that was Shadowlands' narrative. I'm not saying it's perfect, but with the focus on a "trilogy" of expansions (War Within, Midnight, Last Titan) during their World Soul Saga, you need a strong narrative to hold things together.

Having Xal'atath remain the major antagonist is a great way to do that. We know who she is, we know what she's up to, and Midnight acts as WoW's version of Empire Strikes Back. We know the players, the stage is set, and now it's time to give our heroes adversity. Thankfully, this is done in an organic manner that ties into not just the World Soul Saga's story, but also the overall themes of Midnight's featured zones and races.

For everything good the expansion does with its zones, endgame content, and revamps that make upgrading your gear easier than ever before, there's something frustrating to balance it out.

We've returned to familiar territory in Silvermoon City, Eversong Woods, Zul'Aman, alongside some new regions in Voidstorm and Harandar. While there's some serious nostalgia at play here, especially since we begin the expansion's campaign on the Isle of Quel Danas and head straight to the Sunwell, it's done in such a way that the nostalgia helps drive forward what's fresh and new. Sadly, the same can't be said for the "new" zones, particularly in Harandar. While the Haranir are a new race to World of Warcraft, there's not enough being done to take advantage of them. It feels like the same content we've done before, just with a fresh coat of paint.

World of Warcraft's Endgame Has Never Felt Better

While there are plenty of people who play World of Warcraft for its story and single-player content, the main appeal for a majority of people is the endgame content, specifically raids and Mythic+ dungeon content.

The War Within expansion saw the return of "Heroic Week" at the start of the season. This means that when a season starts, the Mythic content (i.e., Mythic raids, Mythic+ dungeons) isn't available yet. While this isn't new for Midnight, I swear things feel different this time around. Finding groups as a solo player is always demoralizing, but that has not been the case thus far. I don't expect this to continue as the season progresses and people become more picky about who joins their groups, but it's something that has stood out to me.

One possible reason for this is that the tuning for endgame content feels dead-on. Mythic 0 dungeons aren't exactly challenging by any means, but you'll still need to actually do mechanics on bosses and trash correctly to complete the dungeon in an efficient manner. The same is true for Normal difficulty raids: do your job, and you'll be fine. Heroic raids are, obviously, stricter, but they don't feel too punishing. There have been occasions where the harder endgame content is difficult for the sake of being difficult, but that hasn't been the case thus far in Midnight.

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Plus, we're going back to Silvermoon City. Yes, even the Alliance.

Sadly, the team in charge of endgame tuning feels disconnected from those working on class balancing. We knew that we'd have a class balance patch on March 17th, but it was incredibly disappointing to see certain classes not get the TLC they so desperately needed. The same is true with the March 24th balance patch, with some classes seeing tweaks that reverted their prior balancing. I can't help but wonder why certain specs, such as Elemental Shaman and Arms Warrior, are getting the short end of the stick. Given how much I've enjoyed the tuning for content, seeing the class tuning miss sticks out like a sore thumb.

Delves Are Not Only Back, but Much Improved

First introduced in The War Within, Delves presented a way for people to get endgame gear without having to play group content.

As I mentioned, trying to join said group content by myself can be an adventure. There's nothing like waiting 30+ minutes to find a group to get you in the mood to play some World of Warcraft. Even with some of the accessibility features in modern retail WoW, such as flex raiding, joining groups feels heavily gatekept. Delves was a way to work around that by allowing you to obtain endgame gear without needing a group.

The tuning for endgame content feels dead-on.

Not only have Delves returned in Midnight, but they feel better than ever. War Within's Delves very much felt like a trial run. They were enjoyable, but Blizzard needed to iron out some details to make them even better. Good news: they've ironed out those details. Delves offered a varied amount of content, ranging from puzzle solving, exploration, or simple "do this X amount of times to summon the boss" mechanics that are an absolute blast to play, especially with the much improved Valeera Sanguinar by your side over Brann. Valeera is not only far more competent, but way less annoying, too.

In addition to Delves, there's another new single-player endgame content mode to explore called Preys, which features NPCs stalking you as you perform select outdoor content. It's presented as a way for players to stay on their toes as they engage in activities like World Quests in Midnight's zones. In theory, it is an excellent idea and another great way to acquire gear without participating in group content. Sadly, like Delves in War Within, it's a valid first attempt that will need to eventually be fleshed out.

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The biggest issue is that drawing out the NPC hunting you is easily exploited by gaming the system. Plus, there's the issue of not having a reason to be doing World Quests after a certain point in the season. So, while these enemies actually do a good job of ambushing you and pushing you to your limits with actual mechanics, they could stand to use some fleshing out in future updates.

We Still Need to Talk About Add-Ons

By far and away, the most frustrating experience with Midnight is that it feels like Blizzard had a plan to make the World of Warcraft experience more welcoming and accessible to a majority of players, but failed to follow through on it.

The most obvious case of this is their add-on purge, which didn't work at first since the best guilds in the world found workarounds that Blizzard would have to patch around. Then there's the fact that, again, class pruning and balancing feel like an uneven affair. Add in the fact that there are still several aspects of the game that don't fully cater to casuals, and one of Midnight's biggest selling points falls flat on its face.

Player Housing is still a hit, but like Preys, it feels like a solid first effort rather than something ready for prime time. There are still some tweaks to decorating your house that need to be refined and overhauled. Then there's the fact that the new player experience feels unwelcoming and cumbersome. I understand that there's a desire from Blizzard to release these expansions on a faster cadence, but at what cost?

Sure, preventing downtime during an expansion is great; you never want to burn your playerbase out on stale content. At the same time, what's the point in releasing this content if it still needs more time in the oven? The add-on changes are the biggest example of this. Players, myself included, have clearly done everything we could to recreate our old UIs, but it's taken far too long.

For all the good World of Warcraft: Midnight does, there are decisions being made that hold it back from being an all-time great expansion. I've said it before, but I'll keep saying it: the add-on changes feel like they were done with no real plan in place. Preys are a great feature, but I want to see a long-term vision here, especially because Delves are now delivering that vision. I'm excited to play through Midnight's seasons and experience everything the game offers heading into The Last Titan, but I also hope that Blizzard lets the dev team fully cook. It feels like they didn't with Midnight, and it's a shame.

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Systems

Released March 2, 2026

ESRB Teen / Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases

Developer(s) Blizzard

Publisher(s) Blizzard