World of Warcraftis celebrating twenty years. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game first launched on May 31, 2025 – fans now refer to that original version of the game as “Vanilla WoW.”
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Since that time, World of Warcraft has seen 10 expansion packs: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), Cataclysm (2010), Mists of Pandaria (2012), Warlords of Draenor (2014), Legion (2016), Battle for Azeroth (2018), Shadowlands (2020), Dragonflight (2022), and most recently, The War Within (2024). And with 20 years of content and characters under its belt, fans might be curious to know what the best of the best is. What better way to celebrate an anniversary this large than by taking a trip back through time, revisiting each of WoW’s expansions?
The expansions are listed in order of OpenCritic/MetaCritic score, with personal notes by the author. This word is not law and every longtime fan of World of Warcraft is bound to have their own favorite expansion.
10Battle for Azeroth
Release date: Jun 10, 2025
OpenCritic Score
Maybe Battle for Azeroth was doomed from the start, coming off the heels of the highly-successful Legion expansion, and in the process, stripping people of their beloved Legion artifact powers. While Battle for Azeroth tried to make up for the loss of Legion power through yet another new power via the Heart of Azeroth and Azerite Empowerment, it didn’t stick well, and grinding for Azerite Power just for your character to stay relevant became a dreaded chore rather than a fun gameplay loop. Later on in the expansion, you also had to farm corruption gear, which involved running the same repetitive content and being disappointed by RNG over and over again.
All the grinding required to upgrade these borrowed power pieces made Battle for Azeroth incredibly alt-unfriendly, though Blizzard ultimately relented towards the end of the expansion and added Corruption effects to a vendor. Oh, and let’s not forget that the Battle for Azeroth story kicked off with the burning of the Night Elf capitol Tedrassil, which many at the time considered an unforgivable sin (this author included). The story only went downhill and got unnecessarily convoluted after that. Battle for Azeroth did, however, give us new playable races – the Zandalari Trolls and Vulpera for Horde and Kul’tirans and Mechagnomes for Alliance – and this author’s favoritealpaca mountto date, so it wasn’tallbad.
9Mists of Pandaria
Release date: Sept 25, 2012
Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft’s fourth expansion, is one that players either love or hate. The same can be said about the thing that Mists of Pandaria is perhaps best known for: the introduction of a new race, humanoid pandas known as the Panderan. This expansion also introduced a new class, Monk. Mists of Pandaria is also when we were introduced to the Battle Pet system, which people tend to, again, either love or hate.
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Love or hate Pandaria, however, it’s hard to deny that the expansion brought with it a lot of fun content, including nine dungeons and several raids. Challenge Modes with limited-time, exclusive transmog sets were also released during this time. Most recently, Blizzard bridged the gap between Dragonflight and The War Within with a “Mists of Pandaria remix,” in which people were able to replay the old expansion and get their hands on rewards they might have missed out on. So with that in mind, maybe Mists of Pandariadoesn’tdeserve to be so low on this list.
8Shadowlands
Release date: Jun 13, 2025
Shadowlands is considered a bit of a dark time in World of Warcraft’s long history, and not just because the expansion involved going to theliteralafterlife. The story was lackluster, with Blizzard placing all of their hope in a new “big bad” – The Jailer – and missing the mark completely. In fact, Blizzard went as far as to reduce fan favorite characters like Arthas Menethil (yes, the Lich King) into plot devices with little cohesion or explanation.
Beyond the story, the zones itself were just as bleak. The Maw – a place where you were required to go for much of the early part of the expansion – felt like a chore, as you spent most of your time hoofing it on foot due to the inability to call a mount in that zone. Torghast becameyet anotherweekly chore, something you were required to do if you wanted a little currency known as soul ash. And without soul ash, you couldn’t craft your class legendary – without that class legendary, you were seriously crippling yourself of power. Shadowlands also introduced Covenants, which again, gave players a borrowed power from their respective Covenant. While not bad in theory (this author quite enjoyed her Night Fae covenant), the Covenant system as a whole received heavy criticism early on as it wasn’t untilpatch 9.1.5that you could freely switch between Covenants. And by then, it was too little too late, as many players were just biding their time in wait for the next expansion.
7Cataclysm
Release date: Jun 17, 2025
MetaCritic Score
Arriving on the heels of the highly-successful Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Cataclysm raised the maximum player level from 80 to 85. What this author has always found special about Cataclysm is that it didn’t introduce us to a new continent with a lot of new and unfamiliar zones right off the bat. The game instead brought us back to redesigned versions of the two original two continents from Vanilla, Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Cataclysm’s central plot involved putting a stop to the dragon aspect Deathwing the Destroyer, culminating with the expansion’s final raid, Dragon Soul. The other most-popular raid, Firelands, offered players pure nostalgia through the return of the Firelord Ragnaros.
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Content-wise, Cataclysm introduced new quests all throughout the original zones, ten new dungeons and five new raids, as well as the introduction of the archeology profession. The raid finder tool, now something many of us may take for granted, was also first introduced in Cataclysm. For the first time in Cataclysm, players were allowed to use flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Two new playable races – the Worgen for Alliance and Goblins for the Horde – were also introduced.
6The Burning Crusade
Release date: Jul 11, 2025
The game’s first major expansion, The Burning Crusade introduced us to the Outland, which came with new dungeons and new raids, including Black Temple and The Eye (which people still run today for a shot at the Ashes of Al’ar mount). The level cap was raised for the first time – from 60 to 70 – and heroic dungeons were introduced. Shamans and Paladins were no longer faction-locked to Horde or Alliance thanks to the introduction of two new races: Draenei and Blood Elves.
What was perhaps the biggest change from the base game to The Burning Crusade was the introduction of flying mounts, available to players at level 70. (At this time, flying mounts could only be ridden in the Outland and not in the “old zones,” but it still made the game more immersive and allowed people to explore in a whole new way.) For those that enjoyed the player-versus-player combat from the base game, The Burning Crusade introduced players to the arena system for the first time, enabling players to face off in 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 death matches. That left a lasting impact on World of Warcraft as we know it, with many players engaging in arena-style fights today and Blizzard hosting a seasonalArena World Championship.
5Wrath of the Lich King
Release date: Jul 10, 2025
Wrath of the Lich King is considered a fan favorite, evident by the expansion’s successful relaunch in World of Warcraft’s Classic cycle. Wrath of the Lich King brought players to the continent of Northrend, where they were able to hit the new max level – 80 – and participate in all-new dungeons and raids, including Icecrown Citadel, which many players still run today for a shot at Invincible’s Reins. Wrath of the Lich King made it so that all players had heroic dungeon access automatically at level 80, removing the previous expansion’s reputation requirements.
Wrath of the Lich King introduced improvements to player-vs-player combat and is often considered the height of PvP in the game. The expansion introduced new battlegrounds like Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest, as well as new arenas equipped with moving and damaging objects on the field to make PvP gameplay more dynamic. A new PvP world zone, Wintergrasp, was also introduced with this expansion.
And of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t give an honorary mention to the fact that this expansion introduced the game’s first-ever hero class: Death Knights.
4Warlords of Draenor
Release date: Aug 05, 2025
Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft’s fifth expansion, takes place in an alternate universe in the world of Draenor. The plot centers around fighting off the Iron Horde and its leaders. The expansion introduced eight new dungeons: Bloodmaul Slag Mines, The Everbloom, Grimrail Depot, Iron Docks, Auchindoun, Skyreach, Shadowmoon Burial Grounds and Upper Blackrock Spire, and three new raids: Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Citadel. Newly introduced in Warlords of Draenor was a Mythic difficulty for raids. For those that enjoyed the player-versus-player content of past expansions, Warlords of Draenor introduced a PvP-focused island called Ashran and made significant changes to the way items worked in PvP combat.
What this author would consider most memorable from the Warlords of Draenor expansion, however, is the garrison system. While not used in present day WoW (except for a Garrison hearthstone, which can sometimes come in handy!), each player was able to build and upgrade their own personal outpost. Recruiting NPCs to carry out missions earned players experience, gold and item rewards. Leveling up each building within your Garrison was a surefire way to earn different battle pets, toys and mounts (most of which are still collectable today!).
3The War Within
Release date: Jun 21, 2025
World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, The War Within, is off to a good start in the eyes of players and critics alike. The War Within takes players beneath the surface of Azeroth to a little-known continent called Khaz Algar, and in doing so, has introduced a new playable race: the Earthen. While the Earthen are, yes,yet anotherdwarven race, they are visually interesting, and even the story surrounding the Earthen and their plight was enough for this author to actually be pulled into the story. The War Within also introduced hero talents, an expansion to the previously-introduced Dragonflight talent trees, with unique talents for each classandeach specialization.
But onto the things that people are actually raving about:Delves, a new form of endgame content, provide competitive gear.Unlike in past expansions, Delves are not a requirement - they’re an option for players (especially solo players) to gear their level 80 characters and to fill their Great Vault for an upgrade each week. This is a huge step in the right direction, as in all previous expansions, you had to group up to run Mythic+ dungeons or raids in order to upgrade your gear appropriately. The War Within also introduced Warbands and the Warband Bank, an easy way to connect all of your characters and share gold and items between them…and it’s also plain fun to see your four favorite characters on the same screen every time you open the game.
Release date: Aug 13, 2025
If there’s one regret this author has in her entire World of Warcraft-playing history, it’s not playing Legion more seriously. It wasn’t until after Legion was over that I realized what I had missed out on: Legion introduced Class Halls, a place where you could pick up quests and work towards unlocking various rewards, including a class-specific transmog set and class-specific mount. Each class and specialization had its own specific artifact weapon, something that you could empower through earning relics. It also brought players back to a new and remodeled Dalaran, the fan-favorite capital city from Wrath of the Lich King. The Mage Tower provided engaging endgame content with class-specific rewards to unlock.
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Legion also introduced players to a new world quests system, an improvement over the outdated daily quest system from previous expansions. This was the first expansion where we saw a changing rotation of world quests populate the world map, with rewards listed via the map indicator. And of course, we’d be amiss if we didn’t applaud Legion for its introduction to both a new class – Demon Hunters – and several new allied races, including Void Elf, Lightforged Draenei, Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren. Legion was a wealth of content, and it has many players (this one included) keeping their fingers crossed in hopes of a possible future Legion Remix event.
1Dragonflight
Release date: Jul 03, 2025
Dragonflight is what many fans consider a “fresh start” for World of Warcraft and for good reason.This expansion did a lot of things right.The “bowered power” mechanic from previous expansions was dropped in favor of reworked skill trees unique to each class, enabling a more customizable playstyle. The zones themselves were beautiful and captivating, from the Dragon Isles to the Emerald Dream. A new account-wide renown system made it easier to earn reputation for all of your characters and a public crafting system breathed new life into professions. And of course, Dragonflight gave us a new race and a new class – Dracthyrs and their accompanying spellcasting/healing class: Evoker.
Perhaps the greatest thing to come from Dragonflight, however, was the new way to fly: Dragonriding. Dragonriding introduced an ability-based flight system that topped all previous flight speeds in World of Warcraft, and the use of Dragonriding-specific skills to gain momentum in the sky (the fully-customizable dragon mounts were a nice touch, too).
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