10 years ago this very week, World of Warcraft‘s Wrath of the Lich King expansion (its second) changed the entire MMO landscape.
While Blizzard had already helped bolster the genre with World of Warcraft proper and the fantastic Burning Crusade add-on, Lich King brought the conversation to the worldwide stage and cemented itself as the most popular and most well-received expansion in the game’s lengthy history. Just check out our official poll: 37.6% of our readers (second place was Burning Crusade with 23.25%) thought it was the best era WoW had to offer.
A lot of Wrath of the Lich King’s staying power had to do with its strong offering of endgame content, which was made more accessible than ever before, catapulting the general playerbase into activities they had never experienced. It also brought in more elements of character customization like the rune system and expanded upon concepts introduced in Burning Crusade like badges: where you could slowly work your way toward specific desired pieces of endgame gear. It pretty much satisfied every tier of player.
Funnily enough the expansion that was voted dead last, Warlords of Draenor, is celebrating its fourth anniversary this week as well. Although Draenor started out strong it quickly faded into obscurity as Blizzard failed to properly support it. They basically decided to cut their losses, swear it wouldn’t happen again, and put all of their efforts into Legion: one of the most celebrated expansions in the history of the series.
Source: Destructoid Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft’s most beloved expansion, turns 10 this week