WoW: Dragonflight Is Flying High, But Can Blizzard Keep The Wind Beneath Its Wings?

gamespot.com:

World of Warcraft is currently the best it's been in a long, long time. Reviews for Dragonflight, the game's latest expansion released in November 2022, were positive. Player reception to the expansion seems to be, too. Content updates, even the smaller ones, have been substantial and frequent, with developer Blizzard so far delivering on its 2023 content roadmap promises. Add the fact that Blizzard seems more open and responsive to fan feedback than ever before, and WoW feels like it's in a great place.

It's a place that Blizzard has been before. Fans will likely think back to the game's 2016 Legion expansion as the last time that Blizzard's long-running MMORPG felt like it was firing on all cylinders. Legion received multiple major content patches and was well-loved by players. But Legion's success in many ways came at the cost of updates for its preceding Warlords of Draenor expansion (viewed by many as one of the game's lowest points) and the launch content for its subsequent expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Both expansions were heavily criticized and unpopular, but 2020's Shadowlands expansion (despite strong initial sales) in many ways would encapsulate the worst aspects of both Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth. Too many mandatory «borrowed power» systems and huge amounts of time between disappointing updates meant that Shadowlands came to represent an all-time low in the history of WoW.

Blizzard isn't looking to repeat those same mistakes with Dragonflight and whatever comes next. In an interview with GameSpot, WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas said the expansion of the WoW team in recent years and how it's handling development in 2023 is built around the idea of keeping up with player demand for updates