BlizzCon 2015 – Our first impression of Mardum, the Demon Hunter starting area

Greetings everyone, hailing from France, this is Lugia and like other friends from Blizzplanet (and beyond) I’m nearly recovering from the trip to Los Angeles for BlizzCon 2015 (I might do a Vblog about my whole experience of the convention we’ll see). But as you might know already from other websites, a part of World of Warcraft : Legion was playable during the two days, to be more precise only the first part of the Demon Hunters starting experience.

You’ll start your Demon Hunter with the creation menu like any other character, but it’s certainly the most wide so far. On top of the usual options like skin color, hairs etc., you’ll have the possibility to choose your tattoos, horn styles* and your blindfold*.

*In the case of those two, it will be possible to not have horns and/or a blindfold (in that last case, you’ll have burning eyes which is pretty bad-ass if you ask me!)

Following the creation of your character, you’ll have an in-game cinematic (which was not ready for BlizzCon) that will explain why your lord Illidan sent you in a suicide mission on the devastated world of Mardum. You’ll recover the Sargerite Keystone . Whoever has control of this object can open a portal to any world where the Burning Legion is present. That would allow Illidan and his Illidari to attack the main world of the Burning Legion: Argus.

Storyboard of the cinematic for Demon Hunters

Once you arrive to Mardum, your mission will be “simple:” vanquish all of the demons of the Burning Legion present there leadered by the Brood Queen Tyranna who has in her possession the Keystone. Once you have set foot, you’ll encounter your Illidari fellows led by Kayn Sunfury. 

Just like the starting zone for Death Knights, you’ll gain better equipment by completing the few quests on Mardum, but also your Demon Hunters abilities by siphoning the living energies of major demons present there. For instance, you’ll acquire the Eye Beam ability, by killing the Inquisitor Baleful and absorbing his essence.

But of course, with the achievements you’ll accomplish there, you’ll have the attention of Illidan. Happy of your exploits, he will give you a first gift: your own Felsaber mount.

Take most of the fur and flesh of a Frost-saber and … voilà !

But that’s not all, a few moments later you’ll be asked to open a portal by a sacrifice, and you’ll have two options in order to open it. Either you sacrifice another Illidari or you sacrifice yourself to power the portal. If you choose this last option, you’ll die for real and sent to the main menu to recreate a Demon Hunter (I’m kidding obviously). No it’s even better, while you are dead your lord Illidan will explain to you that just like himself you have an Immortal Soul, so as long as you have a body waiting for you, you’ll not be sent into the Twisting Nether.

Another cool quest that puts forward the abilities of the Demon Hunters is one that asks the player to use his/her Spectral sight to see demons inside a cavern ready to ambush you and your friends! Finally, after a few other quests to obliterate demons and rescuing friends from the Black Temple, you’ll be asked to put an end to the reign of the Brood Queen Tyranna by using your Metamorphosis spell, which reveals your inner-demon and increases the power of your main abilities. Once the fight is over, you and your Illidari friends will go back to the Black Temple to help Illidan — who is currently having a problem with a bunch of players dreaming of looting his Warglaives and of earning their Black Temple achievement.

To summarize everything, this first part of the starting experience for Demon Hunters is more than correct! You can count around 40 to 50 minutes to complete it. The Demon Hunter’s starting zone introduces well a new Hero Class as epic as the introduction for the Death Knights was. The Monk sadly didn’t get that chance since it wasn’t a Hero Class. During this Pre-Beta test, only the Havoc specialization was available with not so many talents (more were WIP). I hope that the tanking specialization: the Vengeance one, will bring it’s own special gameplay uniqueness since many classes can tank.

With the Legion’s Beta hopefully coming in the next weeks, we hope to learn more once it’s online!

Benjamin Vogt

French Editor working for the World of Warcraft section of Blizzplanet since March 2014.