*This article is compiled from IGN US and is not reproduced without authorization.
I witnessed the nascent Duke of Destruction forever returning from the grave after an unprecedented fifteen-year development cycle. Many of the sequels and expansion packs that have been brewing in the Stalker series are now available on Steam. Square Enix's Final Fantasy 15 has already been released, as has Atlus's Persona 5, but I'll always look back at the E3 trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 (I still have hope for Ubisoft forever).
In my opinion, the most famous of these remaining tough expeditions in the gaming world is a question on the Blizzard Forum when we first ventured into the fantastic land of Azeroth in 2004: "Dude, do you think they're going to port World of Warcraft to the console?"
That wish was never fulfilled. The Alliance and the Horde have eliminated countless villains in eight different expansion packs, wiping out almost all the villains and villains in the world, so much so that now players need to travel to the literal afterlife to find new opponents. However, Blizzard's flagship MMO is still limited to people with PC devices.
Yes, the company has also dabbled in cross-platform porting of games, such as you can play Hearthstone on your phone or Diablo 3 on the Switch, but you've never been able to get into the world of Azeroth on Xbox.
Whatever the reason, this is always an untouchable problem for Blizzard. But now that Blizzard has a new owner, does that mean that for the first time in the glorious history of World of Warcraft, there is an opportunity to change everything?
We've all eased up from microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the amount of news behind the deal is so staggering that we're all immersed in wild fantasies. Will the Sergeant Major appear in the next Call of Duty: Warzone update? Is it possible for Jim Renault to plunder Skyrim Province? Everything suddenly became possible, so this question that had been asked for more than a decade once again occupied the hearts of many players.
Microsoft has an Xbox, so it may be time for World of Warcraft to open its arms to console players, and the solution to the puzzle is just around the corner. In Reddit's World of Warcraft subsection, the most liked reply under the news was simple and straightforward: "World of Warcraft subscriptions are about to become part of Game Pass."
These hearsay have been circulating for years, and during the years when I loved the mixed forums, World of Warcraft's console port was second only to the possible "interstellar world" on my wish list. Even last November, there was a revelation of World of Warcraft landing on Xbox in the rumor-ridden Reddit "Game News Leaks and Rumors" sub-section (although in 2020, Blizzard shattered all these ideas).
I would say that there has been an atmosphere for a long time to expect this to come true, and in theory, now all the puzzles are finally together.
But we're still in the early stages of this merger, and there are still many questions to be figured out before we know what Microsoft intends to do with Blizzard's assets (that is, don't expect to be able to walk around TedaHill with a handle anytime soon). Porting such an ancient MMO has many problems, after all, World of Warcraft has always been one of the most adapted games for the native PC environment.
For example, my dwarven stalker has a series of different levels of action bars, including skills, attacks, buffs, and consumables, and I'm constantly sifting through the trading channels, using my keyboard to haggle with my human, gnome, or night elf companions to make a wonderful deal. It's not easy to do all this with an Xbox gamepad, after all, there are only four buttons and four triggers on the controller.
But that doesn't stop obsessive people from dreaming. Reddit user Kenna2 uploaded a Youtube video imagining a possible interface for the Xbox version of World of Warcraft. The hotkeys are mapped to the arrow keys and the X, Y, A, B keys, which honestly seem convincing.
"My two worlds collided yesterday, I love World of Warcraft and Xbox, and I actually saw them merge in my lifetime?" OMG!" Kenna2 exclaimed in an interview I contacted him, "I'm sure World of Warcraft will eventually land on Xbox Series X/S."
The more I look at the temporary HUD he created, the more I think of The Elder Scrolls OL, another MMO that seamlessly transitions to cross-platform. Microsoft already has a studio that knows how to run MMO on both consoles and PCs, and perhaps Blizzard can learn something from it.
A user of The World of Warcraft subsection of Reddit made a stronger appeal for host porting. "My PC is terrible," he wrote in a comment, "and I can't even stabilize 20 frames when I play World of Warcraft." So I want this game to be played on my Xbox Series X!"
This reminds us of the millions of gamers who, due to long-standing economic inequality, have never been able to afford a powerful PC or have the opportunity to experience the classics of gaming history.
Remember when Valve released the Orange Box on consoles in 2007? Game lovers around the world finally have the opportunity to experience Half-Life 2 on console. The porting of World of Warcraft today can have an equally significant impact. For Azeroth! For the people!
Either way, it's not the golden age of World of Warcraft, the game's player base has been decreasing (which is normal for an old MMO), and the response to the recent expansion expansion pack, Shadowlands, has been tepid at best.
Porting World of Warcraft to Xbox will undoubtedly inject it with a vibrancy it has been lacking since the release of Legion Revisited in 2016. Let me lie on the couch and leisurely use the rocker to collect tranquilizers in the Alvin Forest. I've been fantasizing about this for so long, and now it's close at hand.