Warcraft's next patch event, the pirate-themed "Plunderstorm" for 10.2.6, announced today, includes a number of firsts for the venerable massively multiplayer RPG. It launches today without player testing and includes a wild 60-player battle royale mode.

Not only is this the first time this mode will appear in Warcraft, but it will not use regular servers or existing characters, and players will be able to choose between regular servers and Plunderstorm events when they log into the latest Warcraft client They will be able to choose between the two. Rewards for this event will include parrot mounts and crab pets available to both Modern and Classic players. (Classic players will need to download the Modern client to play, but do not need to own Dragonflight.)

Spellbreak's influence is clearly evident in this new game mode, and in the screenshots we've seen, some of the spell pickup mechanics bear a striking resemblance to the now-defunct battle royale developed by Proletariat; Blizzard is planning to acquire this studio in 2022 and most of the team members were absorbed into the Warcraft team.

I talked to Orlando Salvatore, Blizzard's lead software engineer, who is listed on his LinkedIn page as working on the "Experimental Gameplay team," and Ray Bartos, lead producer. Blizzard said the new battle royale mode was inspired by the latest spin-off of the WoW classic, "Season of Discovery," by keeping the new battle royale mode a secret, Salvatore Salvatore said. The developers made up for the lack of public testing by running wild trials in-house.

"The entire Blizzard company came together to playtest and give feedback.

"We really focused on breaking the rules. We want to give players something particularly experimental and super exciting before The War Within launches," said Salvatore, referring to the next expansion of WoW, scheduled for later this year.

"We are very excited about this," Salvatore said.

The team is closely monitoring player reaction to the event, Salvatore said. If people are posting on social media and posting on forums about how excited they are about the abilities within Plunderstorm, this could totally be something we bring to the game in the future."

"One of the cool parts of what we're doing with Plunderstorm is that because it's separate, we can do wacky new things that you don't typically see in Dragonflight, Classic, or any other flavor of WoW," says Salvatore.

"And that's what we're trying to do," Salvatore said.

"Imagine not adding falling damage to WoW; imagine adding no falling damage to WoW. It would break many of the traverses and rules that exist in the game. But here you can do it."

When logging into a modern WoW client, the Plunderstorm logo appears in the upper left corner of the screen alongside the regular Warcraft logo; selecting the Plunderstorm logo will log you into a completely new game environment, and the user interface is also different.

Once the game begins, you will be taken by parrot to the new pirate encampment at the southeastern edge of the Arathi Highlands zone. Once ashore, you will receive a quest from the pirate Keg Leg.

You will have no talents and will pick up abilities from spawn items on the ground. These abilities are generally based roughly on Warcraft abilities, such as basic kits, talents, and past Legendary/Covenant spells. Interestingly, you can use them in any combination you like, so you may finally become the battlemage you've always wanted to be. There are no auto-attacks, just abilities that are triggered. Everyone has the ability to double jump, and there is no such thing as fall damage.

If you are in duo mode with a friend and the friend dies, Bartos says, use the basic healing keg ability given at the start of the match to stand in that zone and revive them.

"We tried to break the rules of combat in WoW," Salvatore says. Abilities keep advanced players from getting bored, while keeping it simple enough for new and more casual players to easily jump in, Bartos says.

Some things are simply fun. He mentioned abilities that allow players to ambush other players.

Defeating monsters drops diablo-style gold. This currency, called Plunder, adds up over time and progresses to Renown, the Keg Leg of Dragonflight-style fame; at each of the 40 levels of Renown, rewards are automatically earned without having to go to a vendor. Loot can be obtained by killing monsters, defeating other players, completing quests, opening treasure chests, and winning matches.

The last man or woman standing wins. The two exclusive rewards for match winners are tabards and eye patches. All other rewards are available only at Renown's level.

In addition to the mounts and pets, there is a new Pepe shoulder-sitting bird figure for the modern player, a transmog of weapons, and a set of transmog armor for the barrel-legged pirate ensemble.

Each renown level requires 2,500 loot. Each match lasts 5-8 minutes, and most matches will give players 500 loot; there is no limit to the number of quests that can be completed per match.

"You don't have to do them all at once. We don't want it to feel like you have to play every day for six weeks."

The developers anticipate that casual players will need a couple of weeks of obsessive play to get all the rewards.

"This is a monumental undertaking for this experiment. We are breaking new ground."