World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King for Windows, Mac

The World of Warcraft juggernaut continues to expand in users, having recently hit an 11-million subscriber milestone. This is thanks in no small part to Blizzard Entertainment’s continuous patches and updates to improve the game, and their recent expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, was also a significant boost to what players could do within this massive MMORPG.

Wrath of the Lich King expands on the World of Warcraft universe with the addition of the new content Northrend. The story revolves around the reawakening of Arthas, also known as the Lich King, as he unleashes his undead legions onto Azeroth again. The two factions players can choose, the Horde or the Alliance, have ventured to Arthas’ home continent of Northrend to wage war on him as well as the rest of the Scourge. Of course, their new war awakens old tensions between the Alliance and the Horde, rekindling old grudges and possibly leading to the start of a new war between the two factions.

First of all, this game is pretty. It may still have the same graphics capabilities of the original release of the World of Warcraft, but Blizzard is seriously milking it for all that it is worth. Northrend is jaw-dropping gorgeous, the new attacks and skills players have access to look amazing, and the feel for everything related to Northrend is great. The game is pretty, and it’s still able to be run on most capable computers without any major issues.

Wrath of the Lich King also sets the bar for what Blizzard is capable of in their soundtrack. From the haunting Viking-like music of the Howling Fjord, to the epic battles against the Scourge in Icecrown, the soundtrack for Wrath of the Lich King is one of the best I have heard from a video game in the past year.

The new expansion also adds plenty of new content that players can enjoy. One of the biggest new additions outside of the new Northrend continent is the new Death Knight class. The overall feel for the Death Knight class ties in nicely to the plot of the Scourge. Death Knights start at level 55 and go through a seriously epic set of quests to gain its talents and abilities. Blizzard really pulled out all of the stops with this class’s introduction, giving them some of the most thrilling, terrifying, and engaging quests in the game.

Northrend also follows the example of the Death Knight starting area with a lot of heavily involved quests. While the classic “Kill X creatures” quests still exist, there are many quests that have become interactive. Some make use of new phasing technology that lets a player who completes certain objectives affect the world around them, while others allow a player to pilot vehicles, airplanes, and even ancient giants to complete objectives! Players will also feel a sense of importance to the storyline. Previously, a player’s character was left doing grunt work, but in Northrend, this changes. Characters will go through huge missions that let them go face to face with some of Warcraft’s most iconic characters, including a re-capturing mission with your faction’s leaders! The presentation and playability of the new quests and continent are unbelievably good.

There are, however, a few flaws to this otherwise great expansion on the popular World of Warcraft. The new Death Knight class, while fun, is a little more powerful than many of the other classes in the game. This will become most clear with the biggest flaw of Wrath, which is the end-game content.

Players who reach level 80 will find that much of the end-game raiding is much easier than previous raid dungeons. This is both a blessing and a curse, as there are no more too-difficult-for-people-with-lives content, but on the other hand raids where players know the ins and outs of their class will be done with all the introductory content within a matter of three or four weeks at most. Blizzard, however, promises that future content updates which will expand on the end-game content for Wrath will become more difficult, so it’s possible that this problem will be solved.

Players looking for player-versus-player action at level 80 will also be sorely disappointed. Class overhauls and the introduction of the new Death Knight class have affected end-game PvP action. The new battleground, Strand of the Ancients, is a zerg-fest where the most successful teams will swarm one side of the map while the new world-pvp zone Wintergrasp can be absolute murder on someone’s computer if it’s not top of the line. Arena combat is also heavily unbalanced, with Death Knights and Paladins being kings of the hill, while other classes struggle to compete with how good those two classes currently are. Blizzard is working on rebalancing PvP balance, so only time will tell if this will improve.

Overall, if you have played the original World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion, then Wrath of the Lich King is definitely worth a purchase. While end-game content leaves something to be desired, it is also possible for that to be updated and improved upon through patches. The atmosphere in-game of the new zones and content are great. New dungeons look and feel amazing with some original new encounters, and the quests added into Northrend are top of the line. Despite the game’s end-game flaws, Wrath of the Lich King still delivers hours upon hours of entertainment and is, by far, the best improvement to the World of Warcraft to date.