World of Warcraft will be 20 years old in 2024. After two decades, one might think that players of Blizzard's MMORPG have seen it all. But 2023 proved that Blizzard still has plenty of ideas about the game's future, and if the last year is any indication, that future certainly looks bright.

The latest expansion for the modern version of WoW, Dragonflight, launched at the tail-end of 2022 to positive reviews, alongside an ambitious content release roadmap for 2023. The expansion itself proved to be a well-crafted, return-to-basics affair that the game sorely needed after 2020's widely disliked Shadowlands expansion. All that goodwill, however, could have easily been squandered if Blizzard failed to deliver on its promises to deliver more content on a more frequent basis in the year ahead.

Considering how the release schedules for expansions like Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands went, when six or more months could go by without any substantial additions to a game users pay $15 a month for the privilege to play, I think it's safe to say many players were skeptical Blizzard could deliver on its promises. Two major content updates alongside four minor ones over the course of 2023 sounded ambitious, to say the least.