Not all new things bring positive reviews, as Blizzard learned with the latest Plunderstorm Batlle Royale game mode they introduced to World of Warcraft Dragonflight. Despite the negative response, Blizzard says they won’t stop experimenting with new things.
Plunderstorm was either a huge plus to players or it was an extreme miss on Blizzard's part, as multiple players even decided to leave the game entirely for the addition of the Battle Royale. In a recent interview with PCGamesN's Lauren Bergin, World of Warcraft‘s executive producer, Holly Longdale, explained that this was pretty much expected as most new PvP and some of the older PvP modes get a bad review from veterans and new players.
The Plunderstorm game mode brought a new spin to World of Warcraft that avid PvPers had never seen prior, as the Battle Royale took you to a whole new area to destroy the opposition and collect chests and rewards along the way. While the game mode is nothing new to gamers, since games like Fortnite and PUBG exist, it was an entirely new experience for WoW players, most of whom did not like the feel of the mode. In regards to the backlash, Longdale states,
“I’m glad a lot of people gave it a shot. We’re just going to keep experimenting. Plunderstorm is not a failure, but we want to keep trying stuff.”
Dropping in, attempting to collect high-powered spells, and even attempting to slap down another player who dropped in beside you seemed lackluster to most players. Even so, the developers aren’t giving up on introducing new things like this, as we can see from the upcoming game mode, Mists of Pandaria Remix.
Even with all of the backlash, some players really got into Plunderstorm, as the release of the in-game stats showed over 284k players had been absolutely wrecked by tarantulas within the matches. Though the game mode might have been a disaster for some, there is plenty more content to look forward to within the base game, such as the release of The War Within later this year, and of course plenty of Season of Discovery content to master and enjoy.
