Leveling in World of Warcraft Dragonflight will have us climbing to the top of the Dragon Isles

The Dragon Isles are a vast new unexplored continent for us to adventure through in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. Spread out over the isle will be four massive zones that take us back to the roots of Draconic society. Along the way, we’ll meet some old friends like Wrathion, old frenemies like Centaurs, old enemies like Tuskarr, and strange new beasts called… ducks.

Just like in Shadowlands the leveling is laid out in a linear fashion, as we all climb our way up the Dragon Isles together. Everyone will start on the Waking Shores to hang out with Alexstraza and Wrathion first. From there, players will make their way up to the Ohn’ahran Plains to spend time with the Green dragonflight and the Maruuk Centaurs, where you’ll see the fallout of Ysera’s death on Azeroth. Climbing a little higher brings us to the Azure Span. Here we’ll chill with the Blue Dragons and Tuskarr while dealing with the Gnolls in the surrounding area.

Finally, we’ll reach the top of the Isles and get to Thaldrazus. This is where the Bronze dragonflight has been keeping an eye on the timelines, and it’s also where we’ll find out new expansion hub city — Valdrakken. I hope you like Dragon politics as much as I do because we’re sure to get some here.

Thankfully this new hub city will also have the most important amenity, an Auction House: no more will I have to search high and low in Oribos for someone AFK on their Brutosaur.

Height is a big part of the new leveling experience. Each zone you go to sees you reach a little higher up the Isles, which will help you can get the necessary air time and momentum to make maximum use of your new Dragon Riding ability. It makes a bunch of sense too for Dragons to build their seat of power at the very top of something. I imagine that Valdrakken is going to be pretty impressive to fly out from.

Blizzard isn’t quite sure yet what’s going to happen for alts leveling through the Dragon Isles. In Shadowlands we have the Threads of Fate system that lets players strike out on their own to tackle the challenges of the Shadowlands. It’s possible that Dragonflight will have a similar system, or just provide enough experience from non-questing abilities that you could reach maximum level through running Dungeons and Battlegrounds.

Leveling new characters in Dragonflight

What about Chromie Time though? For new players who are just dipping their toes into World of Warcraft to see all of the wonders that Dragonflight has to offer, they’ll get the standard Exiles Reach starting experience. From there they’ll be sent through Battle for Azeroth content until they’re high enough to get into Dragonflight.

If you’ve already leveled a character before, you’ll be given the Chromie Time option and can do any of the expansions as much as you’d like. Shadowlands is going to be available to level through in this way, but it won’t be required to reach the Dragon Isles.

Of course, if you’re deciding to make one of the new Dracthyr Evokers then you won’t have to worry about any of the old world (of Warcraft) at all. They’re a hero class and will start at level 58 ready to tackle all of the problems present on the Dragon Isles.

We don’t have a release date yet, but you can opt-in to be added to the Dragonflight beta when it starts.