World of Warcraft: Midnight Review – Of Void and Light

2024’s The War Within marked a major shift for World of Warcraft in terms of how the MMORPG approaches its narrative. Continuing this new trend is the second part of a planned trilogy—Midnight—which picks up right where its predecessor left off, with the Sunwell in Quel’Danas being under siege by Xal’atath and her Void forces. Along with this, the expansion also brings in a host of new content, including complete remakes of classic zones, a few new places to visit, and a variety of dungeons and delves to explore.

Unlike The War Within, however, which introduced Delves to the game as a new pillar of PvE content, Midnight doesn’t really have a singular major new feature that you would find advertised on the back of a box, aside from player housing. Instead, Midnight is made up of a variety of smaller-scale features, like new types of quests, and focuses more on continuing the central narrative.

Midnight doesn’t really waste too much of your time; you’re summoned to the Sunwell by Blood Knight matriarch Lady Liadrin as part of her desperate gamble to muster more forces against Xal’atath’s invasion. On arriving at Quel’Danas, you’re thrust into the action, tasked with rallying the major commanders, thinning out Void forces, and rescuing civilians caught in the crossfire. After these opening hours provide a glimpse of the major forces for the expansion—the Void, a possible corruption of the Light, and Amani Trolls, you are then given the choice to pick where you want to go next, with early options including Zul’Aman, Harandar, and a questline called Arator’s Journey that starts off in Silvermoon.

Each one of the three story options is quite interesting, at least from the outset. Heading to Zul’Aman, for instance, will throw you into a story that revolves around the tumultuous war-ridden history between Blood Elves and the Amani Trolls while the latter try to sate their desire for historic vengeance while also dealing with incursions by Void forces. Arator’s Journey focuses on the role Paladins have to play in the war against the Void, as discussed through the eyes of Arator, and revolves around traveling all across Azeroth to recover important artifacts. Harandar feels like the weakest of the three, with the story largely revolving around the Light—long believed to be a benevolent force—possibly corrupting local flora and fauna by mutating them in strange ways. These stories all converge into the final stretch that takes you into the Voidstorm, as you set up for the big battle by taking down Xal’atath’s lieutenants and creating a staging area where the enemies of the Void can prepare.

"These stories all converge into the final stretch that takes you into the Voidstorm"

The quality of the story can be rather hit or miss at times. While most of the writing is quite strong, with Zul’Aman being a personal favorite of mine thanks to the introduction of the leader of the Amani trolls, Zul’jarra, and her quest to reconnect with the regional Loa, zones like Harandar never quite felt interesting. While the Light being a corrupting force is certainly an interesting idea to explore, it largely feels half-baked here, and a similar story has already been told in a more interesting way in Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers.

Midnight essentially treats Arator as its main protagonist for much of its campaign. His role in the narrative is to act as a foil to his own father, Turalyon, who might be getting a bit too zealous with his faith in the Light. However, Arator’s writing often feels like the writers don’t know how old he is. Despite being well over 40 years old in the story, Arator is often treated like a child in the narrative, with his part of the larger plot revolving around his understanding of legendary Paladins of the past. Arator’s mother, Alleria Windrunner, also plays an important role in the narrative, but she only comes in towards the end to help your efforts in the Voidstorm.

Despite all of this, however, Midnight ultimately ends up doing an admirable job in setting up its future story beats. The campaign is far from finished, however, and endgame content like raids, as well as future updates will certainly add more story to the game, likely exploring the fallout from the events in the Voidstorm as well as the future of the Amani Trolls.

The story isn’t particularly long in the grand scheme of things, and I was able to finish it in around 15 hours. However, it is worth noting that, unlike previous expansions, focusing on just the main campaign in Midnight won’t get you to the needed levels required for continuing the story. By the time I was done with the first three forks in the campaign, I was at level 85, needing me to wrap up a few side-quests to get the extra level needed to start the Voidstorm’s story. Finishing the story didn’t get me all the way to the new level cap of 90 either, leaving me to grind out from level 87 onwards by taking on dungeons, delves, and world quests. While the level pacing is far from a deal-breaker—encouraging players to do some side quests also helps tell interesting small-scale stories of how various characters are dealing with the latest existential threat—it is something to keep in mind if you’re only focused on hitting the endgame content as fast as possible.

Those that may have been playing since 2007’s The Burning Crusade, which first introduced the Blood Elf zones Eversong Woods and Ghostlands should be quite happy to see what Blizzard has done with these zones. The two have essentially been combined into a single, larger map, with the scars leftover from the Scourge invasion from Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos having long-since healed. Zul’Aman, on the other hand, having formerly been an end-game raid and dungeon at various points of World of Warcraft‘s life, has been expanded out into an entirely new zone. The Blood Elf capital city of Silvermoon has also seen a major facelift—what used to be just a pair of corridors with a few buildings hosting important NPCs has now been redesigned to look like an actual city. As a result of these changes, the entirety of the northern parts of the Eastern Kingdoms map has also been combined into a single, large continent that players can seamlessly fly across.

"However, it is worth noting that, unlike previous expansions, focusing on just the main campaign in Midnight won’t get you to the needed levels required for continuing the story."

As for the brand new zones, Harandar and the Voidstorm are the main new locations, with the latter revolving more around the final parts of the current campaign. Harandar in particular feels quite bland. The zone is a nature-oriented one, being located deep underneath the world where the roots of all World Trees meet. Quite a bit of the zone makes use of bland color palettes that largely revolve around greens and browns, without any contrast offered by a potentially interesting sky, unfortunately.

Voidstorm, on the other hand, while feeling similarly one-note in its presentation thanks to its overwhelming use of darker colors like blues and purples, feels a bit more interesting since it represents major military action that marks the end of the story so far. Rather disappointingly, both of these new zones also feel quite disconnected from the rest of World of Warcraft, thanks to the fact that you can’t really go in and out through regular traversal. Rather, you have to take portals to these zones, which also has the added effect of making these zones feel smaller than they actually are.

Demon Hunters also got an entirely new specialization to play around with—the Devourer. The specialization emphasizes the Void-centric themes of Midnight, and gives all of the class abilities a fresh coat of paint by making them look more closely aligned with the primal force. It also got a new Hero Talent tree—Annihilator—that doubles down on the amount of damage they can do. Similarly, the former Fel Scarred Hero Talent Tree has been renamed to Void-Scarred, and has also gotten a visual upgrade to match. Interestingly, the new specialization focuses on mid-range spell-casting rather than the Demon Hunter’s preference for melee combat.

It has been quite fun so far, with the fast-paced gameplay you would expect from the class kept intact. When it comes to balance, however, things are still unclear for the time being, and the class feels slightly weaker than its contemporaries in its early days. The raid’s release and future tuning passes should make its overall standing much clearer. Players might also be thrown off, like I was, on realizing that Devourer uses Intellect as its main stat rather than Agility. This means that, if you’ve already got a high-level Demon Hunter that you want to try the specialization on, you might want to take a few hours to grind out some Intellect-focused accessories like trinkets and rings.

As for my main classes and specializations, the core gameplay loop around Demonology Warlocks and Fury Warriors hasn’t changed too much. The former has lost a couple of abilities, like being able to sacrifice imps to get Demon Cores, while the latter feels just as fast and frantic as ever. The additions to the Hero Talent Trees in these cases also haven’t felt too meaningful yet, with the new nodes simply offering some extra damage or stats. However, the talent trees themselves have seen a major new node added to the end, offering substantial benefits to their respective bread-and-butter damage dealing abilities. Having completed a fair number of dungeons throughout my leveling experience through Midnight, class balance doesn’t seem to have been disrupted too much, with all three roles—tanks, DPS and healers—looking like they are in decent spots at this early stage of the expansion. However, it is worth noting that I had a hard time finding too many Rogue players in the wild.

"Class balance doesn’t seem to have been disrupted too much, with all three roles—tanks, DPS and healers—looking like they are in decent spots at this early stage of the expansion."

Of course, it’s difficult to talk about World of Warcraft: Midnight without discussing one of its biggest features—player housing. While the feature was added to World of Warcraft a few months ago, Midnight is where we finally get the chance to get deep into it. The housing system is an interesting one, with Blizzard definitely having looked at Square Enix’s implementation in Final Fantasy 14. On logging into the game after having bought Midnight, you will be prompted to start the tutorial for the new housing system, which will take you to a “neighborhood”, guiding you step-by-step to buying a plot, decorating your house, and learning where you can get your hands on more decor like furniture.

While almost entirely divorced from the overall gameplay of World of Warcraft, Midnight’s housing system is a welcome addition, since it allows for a great new social space for players to just hang out in. There isn’t any gameplay utility to the system that will, for instance, make you more effective at doing damage or healing in high-end content. Rather, the entire system is a separate thing you can do when you’re tired of partaking in the usual PvP or PvE activities. Interestingly enough, there is also an entire progression system that revolves around your house having “levels”. Leveling it up involves getting your hands on new pieces of decor, with each level rewarding you with more room to decorate your house, and entire new floor plans and rooms.

As for how you can get your hands on decor, a variety are available through various vendors throughout the world. Many of Midnight’s quests also add to this, offering appropriately-themed pieces of furniture as rewards. While the raids aren’t out yet, a quick glance at their loot tables in the Adventure Journal reveals that this will be yet another avenue for players to get their hands on new and unique pieces of furniture.

Generally speaking, the housing system is phenomenal, bringing back a social element that has been missing from World of Warcraft ever since the MMORPG first introduced the Garrison system in 2014’s Warlords of Draenor expansion. While far from being particularly useful in helping you take down big challenges, hanging out with your friends or guild mates before you all set off for Mythic+ dungeon runs adds a sense of community that has been sorely lacking in many modern multiplayer games.

Midnight’s broader feature set also deserves some credit beyond housing. The Haranir allied race gives the expansion another meaningful unlock for players that like to make new characters for new ways to experience the game. The Prey system also adds a more directed, opt-in form of outdoor challenge hunting that helps the world feel busier in the gaps between story beats.

"While almost entirely divorced from the overall gameplay of World of Warcraft, Midnight’s housing system is a welcome addition"

When it comes to other content like dungeons and delves, there isn’t anything radically new in Midnight. Sure, the expansion brought with it an entirely new set of dungeons for players that prefer taking on content as part of a group, and delves for the solo-oriented player, but ultimately, these systems haven’t seen any meaningful changes since their previous incarnation. Delves continue to be well-designed content tuned for solo play, with Valeera Sanguinar taking over from Brann Bronzebeard as your main NPC partner.

PvP similarly hasn’t seen many changes either, with the only major addition being one new Battleground—the 40 vs. 40 Slayer’s Rise. The other new thing here is the fact that players now have access to PvP Training Grounds, where they can take on AI-controlled opponents in three Battlegrounds: Arathi Basin, Silvershard Mines, and Battle for Gilneas. However, since these Battlegrounds tend to revolve around large battles between teams competing for objectives, Training Grounds feels like little more than a way to waste a few minutes for veterans, while beginners might find it to be a great way to learn how their abilities affect other players.

Professions also continue to see iteration rather than revolution. The systems haven’t changed much since the last major overhaul from Dragonflight, and the brand new recipes are about what you would expect. Much like any other expansion launch, prices for the new materials or crafted items are also immensely over-inflated, and the in-game player-run economy will likely see more stability once the raid is finally released, giving players more access to high-end gear without having to worry about mining for ores or jewels. Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Cooking and Alchemy also continue to be evergreen professions, with the demand for more consumables, jewels, enchantments and buff-providing food never really running out.

Finally, it’s time to discuss the elephant in the room. For decades, World of Warcraft has been designed with a modular UI that can be expanded on through the use of third-party addons. This led to an arms race where particularly powerful addons, like WeakAuras, could trivialize end-game content by giving players easy indicators for complex mechanics. Blizzard, in turn, would make its raid encounters more challenging to account for these addons. With Midnight, however, the developers have taken a hard stance against addons like WeakAuras or DeadlyBossMods, essentially neutering them, and adding similar UI options revolving around readability and accessibility baked into the game directly.

This has led to boss encounters in dungeons already being more interesting, since you can no longer get large flashing red text telling you to get out of the boss’s AOE attacks, for instance. For its part, Blizzard also has to ensure that enemy attacks are more readable than ever before, since players can’t rely on third-party tools to keep track of boss ability cooldowns and other aspects. I generally find this new approach to encounter design and UI to be quite refreshing, since the idea of needing third-party tools to partake in high-end content has always felt like a case of poor game design.

"For its part, Blizzard also has to ensure that enemy attacks are more readable than ever before, since players can’t rely on third-party tools to keep track of boss ability cooldowns and other aspects."

Similarly, Transmogrification—the ability to use any piece of gear you have previously collected as a cosmetic over your actually-equipped gear—has also seen some excellent quality-of-life upgrades. The ability to set up and save entire outfits is an excellent addition, since previously you would need to remember the exact set up you were using.

When it comes to visual presentation, the game engine powering World of Warcraft is definitely starting to show its age. Now, don’t get me wrong. Midnight is a gorgeous expansion with lush new maps, awesome dungeons, and a phenomenal new capital city to hang around in. However, some of the in-engine cutscenes during questing indicated that Blizzard might be hitting the limits of what it wants to achieve, with plenty of scenes featuring stilted animations and blank facial expressions.

On the bright side, when it comes to performance, World of Warcraft: Midnight feels fantastic. Despite the density and scale of the new Silvermoon city, I never suffered from skipped frames or slow downs on my PC running on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, a Radeon 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM. Throughout my time with it, and even against the most intense dungeon bosses, I was able to maintain a steady frame rate of over 100 FPS with all the visual settings cranked to the max. Server stability has also been quite pleasant, likely thanks in large part to many players getting the initial rush out of the way thanks to the advanced access offered by more expensive versions of Midnight.

World of Warcraft: Midnight ultimately feels more like an iterative expansion than a revolutionary one. It isn’t doing much that’s new; rather, we see refinements on many systems and elements that first showed up with The War Within. Even so, it still feels like a strong expansion that lands more often than it misses. While we don’t quite know where the story will take us, the final quests got me excited to take on the upcoming raids. The currently-available dungeons and delves have also been a joy to fight through, and the much-needed facelift for older zones has been a welcome sight. While new players might feel lost with the story, Midnight is a great place to start for anyone. And for those that might want to figure out what’s going on, you can always revisit past expansions to catch up.

This game was reviewed on PC.