Blizzard announced the latest 7.3 patch to the World of Warcraft: Legion in its BlizzCon event last Nov. 5. For this update, the game publisher is throwing in planet Argus, infusing a much-needed excitement for the game in order to better thrive in a very competitive online multiplayer market.
Players might know about Argus as one of the demon worlds and a key power center for the Burning Legion. It was also the home planet of the Draenei race before it was corrupted and overrun.
World of Warcraft players have been endlessly speculating about Argus especially since the planet has been the source of the sustained demon campaign to invade Azeroth. While the patch announcement will not make the game one of the biggest titles of 2016, it is a major news nonetheless.
To demonstrate how important Argus is in the World of Warcraft universe, Blizzard reportedly considered using the planet as an expansion on its own before finally including it in the 7.3 patch. This is huge for fans who have been used to dungeons headlining patch updates. For this particular release, they will be able to travel to an alien world instead.
"Where else could we go in our search for the end of the Legion?" Ion Hazzikostas, WoW game director, told reporters. "If we want to truly win peace for Azeroth, we're going to need to look beyond the land around us, beyond the Broken Isles, beyond Azeroth itself to the skies. We're going to need to go to Argus."
Planet Argus underpins the narrative at Blizzard concerning an apt finale for the Legion expansion. It was being likened to what was developed for the ending of Mass Effect 2, where the only way to win is to bring the fight into the enemy stronghold.
Blizzard is still silent about the actual rollout of the patch 7.3. This is quite understandable because it is still preceded by two upcoming patches, patch 7.1.5 and patch 7.2. The former is only opening for public testing next week, with a full release thereafter. Patch 7.2, which will involve the Tomb of Sargeras, could get an early 2017 release. The Legion expansion itself was only publicly released last August.
Given these launch schedules, players should expect to begin their Argus assault in the middle of next year at the very least.
When pressed why 7.3 got its own announcement this early, Blizzard explained that it will put the two upcoming patches in better context.
"It's hard to say much without spoiling the story of 7.2, which we don't want to do. We definitely wanted to make sure people knew, since otherwise 7.2 might sound like a finale, that there's a whole lot more story waiting for them after that," Hazzikostas said in an IGN interview.
