‘Legion’ Expansion To ‘World Of Warcraft’ Releasing Summer 2016, Watch The Opening Cinematic Trailer Now

BlizzCon 2015 is fully underway with the opening ceremony officially complete. Plenty of news and highlights for many of Blizzard’s games were a part of the celebration; however, World of Warcraft closed out the service with a first-look at the Legion opening cinematic. Not to mention, a general release date window was confirmed by Blizzard, and pre-ordering Legion is now a possibility via Battle.net.

Legion, the sixth expansion to World of Warcraft, is currently targeted for a summer 2016 release date. Pre-ordering the expansion now will grant early access to the Demon Hunter class, although the exact length of early access was not specified. In fact, precise timing will be released at a later date closer to the expansion’s release.

Pre-purchasing the expansion will, of course, grant a buyer access to the expansion and all its features upon release. Buying it right now, though, will give immediate access to the level 100 boost included in the purchase. The expansion, like Warlords of Draenor before it, costs $50 for the standard edition while the Digital Deluxe Edition costs $70. It is also important to note that pre-purchasing or pre-ordering the game is required to gain early access to the World of Warcraft Demon Hunter class.

The tentative release date for Legion is quite the announcement, but the real World of Warcraft excitement centered on the opening cinematic for Legion. As a welcome change of pace, the cinematic featured Varian Wrynn and Lady Sylvanas with a focus on the former. Viewers are instantly introduced to Wrynn, as he writes a letter aboard an Alliance gunship seemingly speaking to its recipient. Wrynn and his ship are soon joined by Sylvanas and a Horde gunship with an imminent legion attack bringing the adversaries together.

Once the Alliance gunship is taken down, Wrynn addresses his son, Auduin, saying that they now share the same belief in peace. In order to achieve peace, though, the Alliance and Horde must fight back the Legion invasion. The cinematic closes with a climatic shout, “For Azeroth,” by Wrynn, who is joined by Sylvanas once again, presumably, on the shores of the Broken Isles. The experience is concluded with “Summer 2016” as the release date for Legion with the fine print stating the expansion is to release “on or before” September 21, 2016.

In Legion, World of Warcraft players will be able to level to 110, master the new Demon Hunter class, find and customize new Artifact weapons, explore the Broken Isles, and become leaders of their class. The expansion is also ushering in a completely new PvP honor system, a better transmogrification system, new raids, new dungeons, and much more. Players can pre-purchase it now from the Battle.net store.

With BlizzCon 2015 still underway, more World of Warcraft details are incoming as specific panels are scheduled to cover Legion and its features. In fact, the official website now includes images of each class specialization’s artifact weapons. Each weapon has a brief description behind its lore, a render, and a screenshot. These special weapons will level up with the hero wielding them, and they are expected to have a separate unlock mechanic that is tied to the weapon.

The tentative release date announcement for Legion, and the reveal of the expansion’s cinematic, is quite the spectacle for World of Warcraft players. Legion may be months away with no new tiers coming to World of Warcraft in the interim. However, the game is updating soon with patch 6.2.3 that will add Valor back to the game, add Cataclysm Timewalking, and introduce the Grove Warden mount. The unique mount can only be obtained by defeating the final Warlords of Draenor boss, Archimonde, on Heroic or higher difficulty. It will only be available for a limited time, too. As the Inquisitr previously stated, players will need to defeat Archimonde before the mount is retired.

[Images via Blizzard Entertainment]