World of Warcraft's expansion, The War Within, will be released in August, and one of the more interesting developments is the introduction of a "story mode."

PC Gamer associate editor Tyler Colp had the opportunity to interview associate game director Morgan Day at Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California, this week, and Day said that the story mode will be a new feature in the expansion, and that the game will be available to players in the future. edition, hinting that it may not be the only new content in the edition.

"In Shadowland, we added 'Chrometime,' where you can play past expansions and level up. We're always talking about the strength of World of Warcraft and how we have so much great content and how well we can leverage it, and as we've seen with Remix, the team is trying new and different ideas to take advantage of it." to take advantage of it.

That led to an idea: what if a "story mode" could be used to help leveling players complete these stories and experience classic raid moments solo as part of their journey to level max?

"Wouldn't it be cool to play 'Wrath of the Lich King Chromie Time' and finish leveling after defeating Arthas?" Day said. Now I'm like, "Wait, what's going on?" And you end the experience feeling like, "I'm not going to be able to do that.

According to Day, one of the benefits is that it opens up raiding, which many players did not see even when it was originally released.

"In the past, raids were only for a select few. We've really expanded the core user base of raids," he said, "but the team still wants to reward players who rise to the challenge of completing a high difficulty raid close to launch and let them play the conclusion of the expansion's story first." We respect that raids are for these people, but we also understand that the story is important to these others."

However, it is still too early to look for opportunities to take down Arthas alone while leveling. The team is focused on implementing a story mode for The War Within content in conjunction with the implementation of Looking For Raid.

"So that's what we've been talking about." It is just a matter of working towards that end goal over time as we add these new features that will allow us to put that tool in the tool belt."

Production Director Michael Bybee said in the same interview that player response will play a major role in whether the feature will eventually become a staple of the game.

"This is the first time we've done it exactly this way. We're going to give this a shot," Bybee said. Because it will shape what we do next." Maybe people will prefer a different one. Maybe they prefer a different version.

"Let's put it out there and see what happens," Day said.