What are your thoughts on Undermine so far?

The War Within patch 11.1 has been out almost a week now and if you’re like me you’ve spent a lot of time these past few days in the Goblin city of Undermine. And while the aesthetic is not up my alley at all, I have to admit I am totally digging the vibe. Jazz music, heist quests, getaway cars — Undermine screams 1930s Chicago and I am totally down for that. Sure I could use fewer trashpiles and more greenery (of the non-slime variety) but like all things Goblin-made it’s built to blast!

That’s not to say that the zone is perfect, mind you. Even ignoring the garbage-and-scrap-metal decor, there’s a little bit of vagueness with the different Cartels. I get that selecting one ends up providing different quests for you to do but the differences between the groups are almost too subtle to notice. It isn’t like in Shadowlands when it was very obvious you were choosing between the Wild Hunt and the Ascended. I’m sure there are players who will end up preferring one over the other due to their rewards or other reasons (I can’t help but have a soft spot towards a group I wrote an article about), but for me it feels like a meaningless choice and I’ll just rotate through them weekly.

Of course no discussion of Undermine is complete without talking about the new D.R.I.V.E. mechanic. There are issues with it to put it nicely — motion sickness, easily getting stuck, etc. — that a not insignificant number of players have decided not to deal with simply by using a normal ground mount. While I’m not fond of it I’m not down on it either; I just don’t feel like outside the races/”shipping and handling” that it’s necessary. Maybe if the zone was larger I would feel more compelled to D.R.I.V.E. everywhere, but it’s not a large zone so getting around at normal speed isn’t onerous. I suspect we won’t be seeing the system outside of Undermine.

What do you think? Is the trash-and-ooze Goblin environment doing it for you, or would you prefer something a little cleaner? How do you feel about the zone’s soundtrack? Do you like the Cartel system? How about D.R.I.V.E.-ing? Or do you want to get out of Undermine as fast as Gazlowe does?