WoW Is Finally Adding A New Endgame Activity, Made With Smaller Groups In Mind

World of Warcraft's next expansion, The War Within, will introduce a new form of endgame progression called Delves, designed for small groups. It will be the first new form of endgame content since the introduction of the Mythic+ dungeon system in 2016's Legion expansion.

Delves are a new form of evergreen, casual-friendly endgame content that can be accessed in the open world. Described as "bite-sized" adventures, Delves that will scale in difficulty depending on the number of players and can be played solo (with a NPC companion) or with up to four other players. In Season 1 of The War Within, the Delve NPC companion will be a familiar face for longtime players, Brann Bronzebeard, whose abilities and talents can be customized to meet a player's specific needs.

Like Mythic+, raids, and PvP, Delves will offer endgame seasonal progression gear via the game's existing Great Vault system. Players primarily doing Delves will be able to earn seasonal mounts, titles, and achievements, just like players who do other forms of endgame content do. It's a big shake-up to WoW's endgame progression, which has largely revolved around more challenging, group content. It is, however, currently unclear how the item level of gear rewards earned from Delves will compare to that of gear earned from Mythic+ or raids.

Delves are just one of the new features announced to be coming with 2024's The War Within, the first of a three-part expansion story Blizzard is calling the Worldsoul Saga. The War Within will additionally add new Hero Talents for each class, a new playable allied race, Warbands that allow characters on the same account to share items and reputation, and new subterranean zones to explore. Though Blizzard did not state it outright, it implied that future WoW expansions may release on a faster schedule than fans are used to.

In WoW Classic news, Blizzard announced WoW Cataclysm Classic is coming in the first half of next year, while a new WoW Classic season, Season of Discovery, sounds like it will turn the old-school MMO on its head.