Blizzard are “slowing down” Season of Discovery development to focus on future projects in the Classic space.
Josh Greenfield, Senior Game Producer in charge of Season of Discovery, shared a message from the team. In it, he explains how the team will be focusing on future projects and slowing down development of SoD. He refers to the new content being worked on as “found photographs content”, similar to SoD. The team needs time to work on the new concepts and so development for current SoD is basically ending. There are no plans to turn off SoD servers, with the aim being for it to be like Classic Era.
While there’s no specifics on what the next content from this team will be, the post does mention them focusing on the “original WoW design space”. We can’t wait to find out what’s coming!
Greetings,
As you may have read here, we’re excited to offer those of you who have completed the Balnazzar encounter in the Scarlet Enclave raid a free Mists of Pandaria Classic Boost!
We believe that it would be a great capstone for Season of Discovery to offer those of you who are looking to embark on your next classic adventure this opportunity to hop into Mists Classic right away when it launches.
When we look back on the journey we’ve taken in Season of Discovery, we are incredibly proud of the time we got to spend with all of you in this unique take on the original version of World of Warcraft. From the first moments that players sat down at the demo stations at Blizzcon in 2023, we knew we had something special, and it’s wild to think that it has been over 18 months since we announced it.
When we think of the impact that Season of Discovery will ultimately have on World of Warcraft, we think about how it helped prove something that a lot of us already knew: there is an enormous appetite for new experiences set against the backdrop of original World of Warcraft. As soon as the realms went live and we saw the response, we knew we had an unprecedented opportunity to immerse ourselves in new concepts and ideas, and see what works and what doesn’t.
Several months ago, as we wrapped up development on Naxxramas and Karazhan Crypts, we had originally planned for that to be the final content update to Season of Discovery. However, we couldn’t let go of the one major unrealized dream for Season of Discovery: the Scarlet Enclave. We looked at our schedule and decided to take a risk in order to make time to create this new raid tier and really punctuate the Season of Discovery experience with something special. We are very glad we did. It’s been incredibly fun to play and progress through the new content with you.
Season of Discovery was a success beyond our wildest imagination back in 2023. We learned so much, we grew as a team both literally and figuratively, and we’ve been invigorated for the future like never before. That future for Season of Discovery is somewhat bittersweet, as we’ve made the decision to slow down on Season of Discovery and begin work on our next major project in the original WoW design space.
We have big plans and big ambitions for this type of “found photographs” content set in the original world of Azeroth, but in order to realize those ambitions, we need to make sure we’re spending our time where it will make the most impact on the long-term future of WoW Classic. We want to set ourselves up for success by taking take the time we need to get in the proverbial kitchen and “cook”, iterate on, and shape our ideas and lessons learned from Season of Discovery into something truly exciting. Season of Discovery was always meant to be an ephemeral seasonal experience, and while it became so much more for a time, we’re extremely excited about the things we’re working on for the future.
We have no plans to shut down the SoD realms, and we hope to see the game mode continue to operate similar to WoW Classic Era for many months (if not years) to come. We’ve all grown attached to our characters just like you have, and we’re happy to continue to adventure with you for as long as you’d like.
We sincerely thank you for joining us on this incredible journey in Season of Discovery. Thank you all for playing with us, making new friends with us, for giving us feedback, for pushing the boundaries of what content set in original WoW could look like, and more than anything– thank you for being passionate about World of Warcraft.
-The WoW Classic Development Team
