World of Warcraft rides the current pirate trend into a new battle royale

polygon.com:

Blizzard has been hinting that something pirate-y is coming to World of Warcraft for weeks now, sneaking little Jolly Roger flags into road maps. We don’t have room for a full pirate expansion, not with the Worldsoul Saga scheduled to take up the next three slots for expansion packs. Instead, we’re getting something highly experimental — a new six week battle royale called Plunderstorm.

Plunderstorm kicks off with Patch 10.2.6, and it’s going to be chaotic. Not only has this mode been hidden from test servers and data miners, but it’s basically unprecedented in terms of the usual World of Warcraft updates. Plunderstorm will have new servers, which require making a new character. Players do need a subscription to hop into Plunderstorm, but they do not need to own Dragonflight, which makes this a fun diversion for Classic and Dragonflight players alike.

Upon logging in, you’ll be greeted by a Plunderstorm logo hanging out next to the Warcraft logo. Upon selection, the player will be sent off on a parrot. Plunderstorm takes place in Arathi Basin, a familiar environment to anyone who’s enjoyed a few battlegrounds from back in the day. The game mode is inspired by the Warcraft 3 meta of taking your hero around to little camps, killing monsters and leveling up. If players want, they can focus entirely on PvP — but if you want the event’s sweet, sweet rewards, you can also stick to these PvE challenges.

Leveling up brings new abilities, a mix and match combination of past legendary spells, Covenant abilities, and tons of talents from each class. Everyone can double jump, no one takes fall damage, and everyone is packing a wacky kit of abilities. For instance, one particular skill lets you pretend to be a shrub to set up the ultimate ambush.

Because Plunderstorm is a battle royale, there will always be one last champion standing. Winning a match can earn you a tabard and an eye patch. All other rewards are earned over the course of playing, so the new mode hopefully