World of Warcraft Classic’s permadeath mode makes a 19-year-old game feel new
If you want to see how one simple rule change can transform a game, look no further than the recently added Hardcore servers for World of Warcraft Classic. Only available in Classic Era form — that is, the mode that replicates the game (more or less) as it was during its launch phase, before any expansions were released — these servers enforce one feature World of Warcraft never had before: permadeath.
This ought to be an absolutely terrible idea. World of Warcraft Classic is not Diablo, where hardcore permadeath modes are a staple. It is not a fast-paced action role-playing game designed for solo play, with flexible character classes that enable the player to use skill choices and loot to effectively redesign their class for survivability.
No. World of Warcraft Classic is, by modern standards, a glacially slow MMORPG, with strictly delineated classes designed to fit into group roles, where the player’s investment in their character is expected to run into hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. Its leveling curve is described on an epic scale across endless stretches of hardscrabble grind, dotted with tough quests, dungeons, and packs of monsters designed to catch players out. The thought of losing all this hard-won progress is horrifying. Adding permanent character death to this design seems masochistic to the point of being a bad joke.
Well, if it is, the joke’s on me: I’m on my fifth Hardcore character. I’m one of the thousands of players thronging the brimful official Hardcore servers Blizzard has set up, and I’m having a great time.
Hardcore revitalizes this early era of WoW completely — more completely, I’d argue, than the launch of Classic itself did in 2019. That release wound back the clock to 2004-2006 in terms
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