World of Warcraft’s slight departure from its normal MMO fare has brought new energy to the game while adopting new mechanics from its previous competitors.
Activision Blizzard announced last year that it intended to release patch 10.2.6 sometime in early spring. No details were unveiled beyond a skull and crossbones, leading to players speculating about the game. The patch, released on March 19, was revealed to be “Plunderstorm,” a limited-time battle royale mode based on the WoW engine. The concept of a WoW-based battle royale took many players by surprise.
But does it work?
How Plunderstorm works
Players join as one of 60 combatants at level one and drop into a pirate-themed loading area based in the old region of Arathi. Once they load into the loading area, they are dropped across the map and have to survive with a pistol, a sword, and a healing potion. The players will need to kill mobs to get items and spells for combat, collect gold, and survive the storm, and the other players will be out for their gold.
Players will have access to several spells and items they can pick up throughout the game. These vary from planting arcane bombs that blast others away to fiery tornados rushing through groups of enemies. The more copies of a spell a player collects, the more the spell gets. The player will also have one-use items that can help them get the advantage or escape a fight, such as a motorcycle or a smoke bomb.
Plunderstorm is available to all WoW subscribers, regardless of whether they play retail WoW: Dragonflight or the various classic modes.
A new game mode on an old model
As someone very used to playing battle royales, I find the rules of Plunderstorm pretty simple at face value. Collect items, get better gear, kill other players, and stay in the shrinking circle. What threw me off is how PvE's leveling system is. The game relies on a player’s gold collection to determine their renown. On the one hand, this emphasis on collecting gold offers a simple way for non-PvP players to try and grind out renown. Conversely, it can create a repetitive and uninteresting approach to gameplay that disincentivizes PvP.
Killing other players doesn’t benefit the renowned grind until later in the game. Players rarely drop enough loot to justify the risk, which led me to focus on avoiding players instead of fighting them. Instead, it felt like a game of luck, of hoping you could find a player with low enough health to justify sneaking up and hitting them with a Level 3 Fiery Axe.
There are many objectives to consider. Players can focus on killing low-level spawns, grabbing chests, taking out Elite minions, or even risking the Pieces of Hate, a raid-tier world boss that appears mid-game as a chance for loot, powerups, and sneaky player kills.
PvP combat felt completely different from standard WoW PvP matches. Players are encouraged to hit their enemies with quickly positioned AOE attacks instead of targeted spells. This emphasizes positioning over macros or cooldowns and requires a significant shift in your play. Without constant play, the game lacks any measurement tools or reticles for its attacks, making it difficult to estimate how far an attack may go. It’s also hard to feel the difference between a level 1 spell and level 4 since most will quickly decimate a player. The health pools also remain relatively small, averaging from 100 at level 1 to 180s around level 6-7.
Plunderstorm’s return value
Players are incentivized to play Plunderstorm to earn separate-themed transmogs, mounts, and pets. While the pirate captain-themed transmogs are well done, the average player's current grind to get all the items is estimated to be around 30-40 hours. Thankfully, Blizzard has provided several bonus quests (including a daily bonus of 800 gold per day.) that help the player get a substantial amount of gold for simple tasks like killing spiders or collecting chests.
I earned a renown tier daily for only about 30-40 minutes of play, a fairly reasonable time estimate for the average WoW player. But that short window also created stress and a fear of missing out. Would Blizzard ever offer options for getting similar products in the future? Would there ever be a Plunderstorm Season 2? It’s unclear, although the game appears popular among streamers and fans.
Plunderstorm offers a unique distraction for players as they wait for the next season of dungeons, raids, and The War Within. It’s a refreshing change in gameplay that gives long-time players a reason to return to WoW in the time between expansions. But the mode also seems to emphasize PvE over PvP, turning the game into more of a grind than other battle royalesThe game mode’s limited time nature makes it a nice reprieve in a desert of new content from Blizzard, but only time will tell if Plunderstorm will have enough wind beneath its sails to earn a return in the future.
