World of Warcraft: Midnight's Zones Strike Nostalgia and Modern Design Balance

At first glance, it's easy to see the current state of World of Warcraft's narrative as an attempt to leverage nostalgia to bring people back.

The game's newest expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight, brings us back to some of the more iconic areas we saw in The Burning Crusade. Silvermoon City serves as our capital city, and an expanded Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman are some of the leveling zones.

It would have been easy for Blizzard to take the lazy route and use nostalgia as a selling point. After all, Classic Burning Crusade is once again a thing, Chris Metzen is back at Blizzard, and people love to talk about the "good ole days" of when World of Warcraft was on top of the world.

That's not the case in Midnight, however. Blizzard has successfully struck a balance of leveraging that nostalgia while incorporating modern design elements. The result is a more immersive World of Warcraft experience that has me perfectly content to stay a while and listen.

World of Warcraft's Art Team Continues to Deliver

One of the biggest reasons why everything works so well is the art design on display.

I have a love-hate relationship with retail World of Warcraft and spend most of my time playing Classic WoW; I'm still actively raiding in Mists of Pandaria and, honestly, haven't really stopped playing Classic since it launched in 2019. The same cannot be said with retail World of Warcraft. On the one hand, I did what I could in Season 1 of Shadowlands. I obtained Ahead of the Curve, pushed Mythic keys, but it failed to capture my attention.

Sure, that was the nature of Shadowlands, but the same thing keeps happening; Dragonflight and The War Within hook me in, but I'm not necessarily fully invested. Having said that, if there's one thing that has always won me over, it's the art direction. Blizzard has been on a roll as of late, and I fully believe that returning to Azeroth proper has inspired them. War Within has some of the best-looking zones to date.

Midnight takes things to another level, though. It was always going to be hard to deliver on modern reworks of iconic zones, but Blizzard nails it here. Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman have a much-needed HD facelift while successfully incorporating the modern design elements of a post-Dragonriding (now called Skyriding) World of Warcraft.

Midnight's Zones Are Laid Out in a Way That Makes Me Want to Explore Every Nook and Cranny

Everyone had a hunch that the facelift of the old Burning Crusade zones would result in a major expansion of their size. Take Eversong Woods, for example, which has been greatly expanded, whereas the Ghostlands are no longer a zone. Zul'Aman has expanded far beyond the raid we experienced back in the day.

This, in itself, isn't much of a surprise. If we were to utilize Skyriding, it would take all of five seconds to cross the old Burning Crusade-sized zones. They needed an overhaul in this regard. The way Blizzard does it, though, is a triumphant success. Everything feels like it intertwines together, from the world quests, treasures to discover, Renowns to work, and even incorporating elements from the new Prey system introduced in Midnight.

As someone who doesn't always have the time or a dedicated playgroup to experience end-game content, it's nice to have more ways to experience this through the continued support of Delves and now Preys. Of course, none of that would matter if the world isn't worth exploring, so it's nice to see Blizzard deliver in this regard.

Now, Burning Crusade is my favorite expansion, so to be honest, I would have enjoyed exploring Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman no matter what they looked and felt like.

Midnight's Brand New Zones Avoid the Mistakes of Past Expansions

With the new zones (Harandar and Voidstorm), the same applies here, incorporating the very best of modern World of Warcraft design. Skyriding remains one of the best mechanics the game has ever seen, and it makes exploring these zones and engaging in them that much more enjoyable. In fact, it's a testament to how good a mechanic it is, since these two new zones could have easily suffered from the same disconnect that Shadowlands' zones suffered from.

Harandar and Voidstorm aren't necessarily accessible on the map; you have to take a portal to reach them. Yet they're so integrated into the visual aesthetic of the rest of Midnight, as well as the zone's themes, that this doesn't bother me at all.

It helps, too, that they evoke fond memories of past Burning Crusade zones in Outland. Harandir has Zangarmarsh vibes, whereas if you told me Voidstorm was just a reskinned Netherstorm, I would have 100% believed you. When you tie in the engaging stories that exist in these zones, complete with cutscenes that continue to drive home the importance of said stories, it becomes clear that World of Warcraft's narrative not only continues to be important but also an essential part of the questing experience.

These cutscenes aren't necessarily new here in Midnight, but Blizzard has done well to let them feel more natural compared to past expansions. It feels like I'm playing through a single-player game rather than an MMO that just happens to throw in a cutscene and interrupt the flow I'm in.

Now, when I'm leveling alts, I'm probably going to be skipping the story and sticking to Adventure Mode, but that's a-okay in my book. It means that I'm going to be exploring the zones I love, finding secrets I missed out on, and immersing myself more into the world of Midnight. Given that Blizzard could have simply ridden the nostalgia wave of Burning Crusade, it's nice to see them keeping their foot on the gas and keeping things moving forward.