New World of Warcraft expansion announced: Mists of Pandaria

At the BlizzCon opening ceremony, Blizzard officially announced the next expansion to World of Warcraft, and it looks like it might be the weirdest yet. It's called Mists of Pandaria, and it adds the Pandarens to the game. Yeah. That's right. Pandas. Let's do this.

Blizzard says that this expansion will focus on ending the war between Horde and Alliance instead of adding a new big bad to fight. How that will actually work is yet to be known, but we’re sure they know what they’re doing. But who the hell cares about that? There’s more important news to talk about: Pandarens! Warcraft’s Panda race is finally being added to the game as a playable race after years of rumors and speculation, and their homeland of Pandaria is the new continent coming in the expansion. We're beyond excited.

The other additions in Mists of Pandaria are fairly run of the mill when compared to playable pandas: the level cap is being increased to 90, there are new Challenge Mode dungeons being added to the game, a new talent system is going to be included, and Blizzard will be enhancing the pet battle systems. And did we mention pandas? Because there are going to be pandas.

There’s a trailer that we hope to have in the near future. In the meantime, please argue over whether or not World of Warcraft is dead – that should buy us some time to get the footage.

Oct 21, 2011