What did you think of the newest World of Warcraft game modes?

While we’ve been through the pre-expansion doldrums many times before, but the last few months of Dragonflight saw some new experiments hit the live servers. Perhaps the most unique thing about these new game modes is that players had to leave their existing characters behind. The ongoing Mists of Pandaria: Remix required creating new characters, and March’s Plunderstorm was so far removed from traditional World of Warcraft mechanics that your temporary avatar didn’t even have a class. So were these new game modes a smashing success or a failed experiment?

Not only was the Plunderstorm game mode something totally new, it was a tightly kept secret right up until the day it launched. For six weeks, players swashbuckled their way through a 60-player battle royale until there was only one buccaneer remaining. A 40-level reward track awarded players a pirate-themed transmog set as well as pets and mounts. Opinions seemed mixed to unfavorable, especially due to the PVP nature of the event.

Still, when I was sitting on the island waiting for my next parrot ride into Arathi, there were plenty of players who were there despite not being the biggest fans of the format. Most of the chatter was focused on progression through the reward track. As for me, the idea of careening a dragonriding parrot around Valdrakken for three months was too much to resist, and I spent the last week of the event playing little else. I did stumble into just one victory by employing my old Fortnite strategy of waiting until there were three players left, allowing the other two to battle to the death, and ambushing the now health-depleted victor.

Mist of Pandaria: Remix has just about two weeks left, and it has been another experimental game mode where players leave their Warband in the Dragon Isles. Leveling a new character has been a different experience since the introduction of Chromie Time in Shadowlands, but this new three-month adventure saw us returning to one specific previous expansion all at the same time in order to speed-level some new alts and earn a slew of rewards.

I did find myself logging on to my Remix characters despite feeling like I’d rather be wrapping up my Dragonflight to-do list. This was another criticism that I heard — that the Fear-of-Missing-Out factor and limited window of both modes made it difficult for players to simply choose whichever game mode they were drawn to in the moment. In the end, I got two new max-level characters to start out The War Within in addition to many (but nowhere near all) of the possible cosmetics.

So what do you think of these two new game modes? Were they a welcome distraction from the wait for The War Within, or did you skip them entirely? Would you like to see either of them return? There has been discussion of which expansion could be remixed next, as well as ways that Plunderstorm could return in a temporary or permanent way. Or would you like to see another game mode entirely?