World of Warcraft: Dragonflight performs well in terms of player retention numbersBlizzard revealed this thanks, in part, to its fairly ambitious roadmap.
The MMORPG’s ninth expansion launched at a time when fans were disappointed by both the narrative choices of its predecessor, Shadowlands, and the drought of content that marked its post-launch support. Dragonflight has managed to be the opposite, thanks to a steady cadence of content drops, and it seems to be paying off.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Player Retention Numbers
“The look of our graphics is unlike any other era in the past, in a good way,” said Holly Longdale, vice president and executive producer of World of Warcraft, in an interview with Gamespot.
“That continues to amaze us and makes us believe we’re doing the right thing. We just have to tweak and keep trying things.”
This is confirmed by a recent financial report from Activision Blizzard, in which the publisher noted that content for the MMORPG was being released. “faster than ever” and that “Subscriber retention in the West remains higher than at the equivalent stage of recent modern expansions.”
The roadmap for World of Warcraft: Dragonlfight promised six major and minor updates throughout 2023 and Blizzard has so far successfully released them on schedule.
This meant that players didn’t have to wait long before they had new quests to complete, raids and dungeons to run, customization items to collect, and new public events to participate in.
The final step to keep Azeroth alive throughout 2023 is patch 10.2, which is expected to go live at some point in the coming months.
A rich, steady cadence of content isn’t the only thing Dragonflight does differently from Shadowlands.
Narratively, it returns to more familiar territory, taking place on Azeroth. The story revolves around a rather traditional conflict for the series, which saw the Dragonflights fighting against a new antagonistic faction, the Primalists.
Additionally, it ditched the ephemeral borrowed energy systems that had been introduced since Legion, focusing on improving the core experience.
This meant bringing back detailed talent trees, significantly improving the UI and its customization, while also introducing a new method of traversal in the form of Dragonriding.
It will be interesting to see if WoW: Dragonflight’s player retention numbers remain at a similar level as the expansion nears the end of its lifespan.
An announcement on where the MMORPG is headed next is expected later this year at BlizzCon.
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