When the features were announced for Patch 6.1 many players were quick to call out the lack of new content. While 6.1 included many updates including the new Heirloom collection system, it offered little in the way of new playable content to explore. Patch 6.2 has recently hit the public test realm and man does it make up for what 6.1 was thin on. Let’s look at some of the major new features that are on the way.

Invasion of Tanaan Jungle

First and foremost the Tanaan Jungle zone will finally be unlocked through a series of events known as the Invasion of Tanaan Jungle. The new zone will feature open-world questing which I assume will include dynamic events complete with rare spawns, hidden treasures, and other discoverable goodies. 

The new zone will also be the home of the new 13 boss raid, Hellfire Citadel. From the patch notes:

Assault the Hellfire Citadel, mighty fortress of the Iron Horde, torn asunder by fel energies unleashed by Gul’dan, and stop the impending invasion of Azeroth!

Hellfire Citadel stands at the heart of Tanaan Jungle, where 13 deadly bosses await you, including Kilrogg Deadeye, the monstrous Gorefiend, a reanimated Mannoroth, and Archimonde himself.

Getting into Tanaan Jungle won’t be a Sunday stroll. It seems as if you’ll need to fight your way in. In fact you’ll need to first construct a shipyard!

Shipyard

Players with a level three garrison will be able to construct a shipyard that will allow access to Tanaan Jungle and new Naval Missions. By accepting a new “War Council” quest in your garrison, you’ll be tasked with constructing a shipyard. Once built you’ll be able to start assembling a naval fleet to take on a series of new Naval Missions which will be similar to follower missions. The ships that you build can be outfitted with different crew and equipment loadouts that will work similarly to follower traits and abilities. The system is still very early in development but seems like it could have lots of potential going forward. It’s also great to see naval warfare return to Warcraft - it was one of my favorite features of Warcraft II and I’ve missed it ever since.

Dungeons

Patch 6.2 will be offering fans of dungeon runs a few interesting and long asked for features. The first is adding a new mythic difficulty level to existing dungeons. This new difficulty is designed to offer an alternate method of progression. Mythic dungeons will drop item level 680 gear with a chance for the last boss of each dungeon to drop item level 700 loot. These dungeons will be on a weekly lockout just like raids.

In addition to a new difficulty, the developers are introducing a new feature called Timewalking. In patch 6.2, there will be new weekend events that will run every week from noon on Friday until noon on Monday. There will be seven types of weekend events at launch with two of them being Timewalking. The other five have yet to be announced.

So what is Timewalking? When a weekend features Timewalking as an event players will be able to head back into The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King dungeons where your characters gear and power will be scaled down to a level that makes each dungeon feel like a heroic version of it. You will not lose any of your abilities, talents or glyphs while Timewalking. What’s more is nearly every piece of loot you acquire will scale back up to an appropriate level for your character. The following dungeons will be available for testing soon:

• The Arcatraz
• Black Morass
• Mana-Tombs
• The Shattered Halls
• The Slave Pens
• Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom
• Gundrak
• Halls of Lightning
• The Nexus
• Utgarde Pinnacle

Adventure Journal

The Dungeon Journal is getting a big upgrade and will be transforming into the Adventure Journal. While all of the existing Dungeon Journal content will remain intact, the new Adventure Journal will guide players as they level with suggestions for what they can do or where they should go. This feature has long been in the works and it seems as though it will finally be seeing the light of day. I have really been looking forward to this as I think it will be incredibly helpful for new players and also veterans jumping back onto a character they haven’t touched in years.

The idea is that you can open the Adventure Journal window and see what content is recommended for you. From this window you can easily queue right into a raid, dungeon or battleground for example. If there is an important quest line for your current level that you haven’t started, you can pick it up immediately.

I’m not sure how specific the suggested content will be (recommending you to attend to various garrison chores, for example) but I think it will be a very welcomed tool by most players.

For the most current Patch 6.2 notes, visit the official page.

Movie Update

It’s been very quiet in terms of Warcraft movie news. Many have speculated that the film is behind schedule while others have claimed that all is well and that we may see a teaser trailer in front of Jurassic World. Unfortunately news broke late last week that Universal is once again pushing the film back from its March 11, 2016 date to June 10, 2016. It’s unclear as to why this move happened and it could very well have nothing to do with the current state of the project. Often times film releases are shuffled around as the distributors attempt maximize profits. Heck you could even claim the movie is turning out better than expected and Universal wants to kick off their summer schedule with a bang. My guess is that they think the film can compete against the summer competition and moved it so it can do just that. Hopefully we’ll hear or see more at this year’s Comic-con.

Let us know what you think of patch 6.2 so far in the comments below!