World Of Warcraft: Legion Remix Review

How many people playing World of Warcraft regularly now were around when Legion first came out?

I imagine that a fair number of people have. Anecdotedly, I know a lot of players who started back in Mists of Pandaria, or at the start of Legion (with some having joined, and even stuck around, after Warlords of Draenor) so to them, this almost feels like coming home to what got them into the game in the first place, or, barring that, an expansion they have fond memories of.

For those that came after Legion? It’s a look back at a storyline they might have skipped, since after “Battle for Azeroth, the game started to dump new players in Stormwind and prep them into doing the newer content as quickly as possible. A nice, interesting way to revisit an older expansion that made the story what it is, and how some of what’s currently normalized got its start.

All in all, Legion Remix has something for everyone to enjoy.

So in this quick article I wanted to go over Legion Remix, and highlight a few things that I thought this gamemode did right, a few that I thought it did wrong, some ideas for improvement, as well as comparisons to Mists of Pandaria, which really set the bar for how Remixes should be as it came out of the gate swinging and set the standard.

So let’s get into my personal thoughts on what made the last several months so much more fun than playing regular Retail Warcraft right now. Let’s begin!

What It Did Right

There’s actually quite a lot that Legion Remix did right. It’s go, go, go, go the moment you finish the tutorial, and you’re allowed out into the world. All of the world quests are there to do, you can go straight to Argus, and at lvl 15 you can even do the normal raids. It’s set up for complete freedom so that you can choose the path you want to go, while being extremely overpowered right at the get-go.

Really, that’s the best part right there: The powerscaling. Typically, in the game, you’re pretty underpowered the entire way through when you play normally. Even in Mists of Pandaria Remix, you were still technically underpowered until you got close to the end game, or had a few alts that did hit the end game.

Yet here? Once you got your artifact, you end up one or three shot everything aside from bosses, rares, and some elites. Even then, as long as you stack Leech, you’ll be effectively unkillable. Once you unlock your artifact ability? It’s on a 1-minute timer, and that ability is pretty much a one-shot-one-kill situation depending on which one you used (I personally went with Tempest Wrath each time for the damage output alone). The whole point of Remix is to be extremely powerful, since you’re on a time limit, after all.

But it’s the Time Limit as well that makes everything feel... overwhelming. While that might feel like it should be put into the “What It Did Wrong” category below, I actually sort of enjoy this part since, as I said, it opens up as soon as you touch down in the Infinite Bazaar and get your first artifact weapon. You can be level 15, go to Argus, do the campaign backwards, or focus entirely on just the dungeon experience to rack up infinite power. Or, just pick the quickest path to max level, and build an army of alts. Everything is defined by your goals, whether it’s to maximize a few characters, build plenty of characters, or just achievement farm.

I will say though, that one of the things that I personally liked was the addition of “Heroic World Tier”, where the enemies are more plentiful and powerful, with added buffs that will beat you down if you are not prepared. In Mists of Pandaria Remix, once you hit a certain threshold of power... well, that was it. The enemies were one shotted and, depending on your build, would die the moment they hit you. With this mode, you can activate it and get higher rewards for a higher challenge. Though once you do hit another threshold, it sort of repeats in a similar way, as Heroic Mode does not scale with you.

But it’s a start for refining the process, which I’ll get into more in this article in a bit.

All in all, my second favorite part? No juggling gems. Part of the Mists of Pandaria Remix experience was saving a bag for leveling up gems that you got, and then combining them to empower them to another level. Sure, at the time, it was fun, but it was also a pain in the butt. Here, your abilities are tied to your rings, trinkets, and necklaces, and it’s all about finding the right ones for your current build and playstyle. Sure, it’s all down to RNG, but at least it’s just a matter of playing the in-game lottery rather than hefting around a bunch of odds and ends.

But what about my favorite part? I’d have to give that to the story. Yes, it’s Legion’s Expansion from beginning to end, but all through it there’s the meta-narrative that the Infinite Flight are going through in trying to understand this point in time in Azeroth’s history. During Mists of Pandaria Remix, it was explained it was an experiment and... that was it. We just happened to get caught up in all the time-warp shenanigans, and we were recruited to help before we were returned to our own timeline. Here, the storyline from the Infinite is that we were plucked out of our time and place to help, and that it’s a doomed timeline, so why not get a little crazy.

Yet even with that, there’s a background story that’s going on as told through Eternus and Moratari. After each major story achievement you do in Remix, they both ask you questions about how you feel regarding the timeline and your place in it, and you can answer in several different ways that do make it feel rather unique. Answers that range from actual, emotionally charged, to possibly evil, to aloof and indifferent, and anything in between, making you feel like the answers are your characters... or at least just to see the funny answers if you wanted. As many people know, I’m a roleplayer at heart, so this really interested me the most.

Yet the ending really sealed it as a meta-narrative about the expansion, and it made me choose this as my favorite part of what they did right. You’re asked about your feelings about everything that happened, and you can answer with a set of prewritten answers. Yet it still made me reflect on the expansion from when I first played it to the end, and on how it affected the game’s story afterwards, since the next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, was divisive.

What It Did Wrong

That’s not to say it was perfect throughout the whole thing. In fact, there are many areas of improvement, as some gameplay loops felt underdeveloped or not thought through.

For the most part, this was a definite FOMO experience. I know that this is exactly the experience you should expect from an event that only lasts 90 days, but it was also wedged between housing being released, a major story upgrade to set up the next expansion, the brawl pub, the end of Season 3, as well as holiday events, and more that were all timed events one needed to do.

Personally, as someone who loves the game but cannot devote the entire day to it, this was a major letdown. While one didn’t need to be logged in all day every day to get what you would need from Remix, there were certain achieves that were entirely gated by time and RNG and if I wanted to do the holiday events, keep up to date on raiding, finish playing the story and do my daily chores on my main (not to mention alts) I would have had to play almost every hour of free time.

At that point, the game stops being an adventure and becomes more of a checklist, and it’s one of my major turn-offs in Warcraft: there comes a point when I go, “Why? Why bother?” and the Skinner box becomes obvious, and I lose interest.

Another thing I felt was that it didn’t quite capture the feeling of total, utter chaos. In Mists of Pandaria, it was very chaotic. Not only did you have so many different abilities you could mix and match via gems, but you also had different secondary stats that stacked up to almost ridiculous degrees. As an example, in MoP Remix, I played an elemental shaman that stacked Haste and Leech, and once I reached such an absurd level of stats, I was practically a chainsaw that never lost HP.

In Legion Remix, the secondary stats are hard-capped at your ilvl, and most of your power comes from “Limits Unbound,” which increases your versatility and stamina. Versatility is great for stacking damage, healing, and damage mitigation, so it makes sense it’s the secondary stat of choice to level up, but other than just whalloping an enemy for 100million damage, there wasn’t anything beyond just seeing how high you can climb. No massive increases to speed, zooming around the map, no overpowering avoidance so you become a PvP dueling god and can solo Mythics, no stacking crit to a ridiculous degree that you can fist bump God to death. Just a cycle of increasing Limits Unbound, and that’s really it. The final thing I didn’t think they quite did right isn’t actually Blizzard’s fault, but rather the players’. As usual, some players were toxic to the point that it was a major turn-off, verbally abusing other players who weren’t quite as far along in their own personal journey in the game, or weren’t as stacked as they were. This was highly evident the moment that the Antorus Raid and all of Argus was released in the second content release of Remix. Day 1 had players forming Mythics, taking only those who were at max ilvl and had a certain level of Limit Rebound/Health. If you had less than 100million HP, you weren’t getting into a Mythic, and even if you did it in heroic, you’d be harassed if you weren’t as good as others, despite the raid bosses going down fairly quickly (and completing the raid in less than 20 minutes).

I suppose that’s more of a me problem, though, as I’m not really a fan of the term “pumpers” and the whole growing culture of “pumper” terminology. I feel as long as players know what they’re doing, it should be alright. So this point really isn’t inherent to Legion Remix at all.

Comparisons To Mists of Pandaria Remix

I already touched on this a few times up above, and I don’t want to repeat points I’ve already gone over. In a nutshell, the gems are gone, ability juggling was different, the build-up of power was different, and the whole leveling experience was similar, but different enough to be fun.

With that out of the way, let me touch on a few other ways Legion Remix differed from MoP Remix.

For starters, the main difference is in the level of fun and excitement. Mists of Pandaria Remix came out after Plunderstorm, which was an experimental Battle Royale Free For All fully focused on PvP, and of course, players were divided on that. If you didn’t like PvP, you hated it even though you might have wanted the transmogs. Remix was a breath of fresh air, unlike Classic or Seasons of Discovery, and it let players revisit the expansion in a fun way.

So those early days were pure chaos while people ran around and experimented with what they could do, how to break it, what bugs there were, and the fastest way to grind and level up while also playing the game and trying to do the achievements for cosmetic items or just leveling alts. In Legion Remix, those who experienced MoP Remix knew what to expect, and out of the gate, people were already exploiting the game or racing to 80 as fast as they could, so the newness was already worn off right at the start.

However, that’s not to say that it was completely the same. The biggest difference in Legion Remix was the inclusion of Research Assignments, which were absent in MoP Remix. I actually quite enjoyed these on a personal level as they gave not only direction for players to do content (if they weren’t interested in any one thing), but also gave small rewards that increased EXP gain through all other characters that you’ve made. If you’ve done the 150 required Assignments for the achievement, that’s roughly a 300% EXP gain on every character, meaning you can level up a character from start to 80 in as little as several hours at that point.

Overall, the difference between Mists of Pandaria Remix and Legion Remix is that Legion is a lot smoother and more thought-out than MoP’s Remix was. It wasn’t as experimental and was more like a system of challenges and achievements to get that rewarded you for your time invested, as well as seeing just how insanely overpowered you could potentially get. The downside is that it felt a little more ‘grindy’ that way, but your mileage may vary depending on your preferred playstyle.

Ideas For Improvement

Now, nothing is ever perfect. Mists of Pandaria Remix was fun, Legion Remix was a blast, but there are always new ways to add to the fun and make it engaging for players—especially those who are looking for something outside of the basic gameplay loop of regular retail Warcraft.

Here are a few ideas that I personally think could be fun, and really are just subjective opinions based entirely on what I enjoy. There might be some other ideas that other people have that are just as valid. In the end, I hope they implement these ideas, but if not? Blizzard has shown that they know what they’re doing with Remix.

Expansions To Use

As we’ve seen with the last two Remixes, they prefer to use expansions that can be done completely on one landmass contained in said expansion, with minimal ways to get to the rest of Azeroth. So it makes sense that the next Remix will be one where we show up on a new continent, do the content, and pretty much are stuck there for a while.

My votes for the next Remix I’d love to see are Burning Crusade Remix, Wrath of the Lich King Remix, or Warlord of Draenor Remix. While Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands fit the criteria, I feel that they’re relatively too newish to take full advantage of, even if they’d be fun to play... and yes, even Shadowlands to an extent.

Think about it with both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King: These two expansions came out before the Cataclysm Revamp, and are encapsulated in what’s considered the Classic Era of Warcraft. They’re both expansions that a LOT of players have not seen due to their age, and whose lore had been retconned throughout the years. While Remix is all about the mad dash from start to end as quickly and efficiently as possible, it is still a fun way to explore the entire story campaign as well. In fact, I’ve done a zone story every day as much as I could simply so I can remember what it was like from its original run and how it ties in with a lot of modern Warcraft’s story.

So imagine starting TBC Remix at the Dark Portal in Hellfire Peninsula, with a powerful item to level up throughout your journey. Then, with a pat on your back, you can either do the story campaign as is, jump straight to Shattrath, or any number of different things. The same thing with Wrath of the Lich King: You do the tutorial in Dalaran, then get teleported to the starting location in either Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, and away you go.

Best yet is it’s an opportunity for Blizzard to not only update old graphics from those eras so they look in line with the current graphics, but perhaps even update lore, add World Quests to the zones (as this was before world quests were a thing), improve voiced dialogue, or do things that they couldn’t do back then.

World Content Tiers

Personally, I think that Blizzard did a smart thing in Legion Remix by adding Heroic World Tier to the mix. Once you get to a certain point in normal, it becomes trivialized and easy. Which, I suppose, is the point of Remix after a time, but it also means that grinding out achievements and such can become boring.

With Heroic World Tier, the enemies are not only stronger, but they also have randomized buffs that do things such as calling extra demons, having extra HP, or enemies around them have damage bonuses, regeneration, and more. It adds a new layer of challenges that felt interesting since no two engagements were really ever alike. Plus, it was added to elites, rares, and world bosses for added fun, and the rewards were high for killing them.

I would love to see another tier, though - perhaps Mythic, with Mythic+ content unique to yourself. Mostly because once you also hit a certain threshold with Heroic World Tier, it again becomes trivialized to the point you’re still one-shotting everything. At around ilvl 740 with around 100 levels in Limits Unbound, I was still one-shotting everything quickly, and that was from a few days of running mythic dungeons on my own, as well as joining raiding groups to do every single raid in one day; rinsing and repeating it again the next day.

Who knows. Some added challenges that are constantly reaching extreme limits could be fun, especially if they do The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King remix, given that there’s not as extensive of content as Mists of Pandaria and Legion.

Overall, those are just two ideas I had while playing through Remix. One from expansions I played a long time ago that haven’t gotten much love outside of Classic, and another is simply adding insane challenges to a game mode meant to increase power levels to an insane degree, keeping it fresh.

Conclusion

So, which one was my favorite between MoP and Legion Remixes?

Honestly, it’s hard to say. I liked them both for what they were, and I appreciate that Blizzard is doing different things with its IP to keep things interesting. While it feels like they’re really just trying to keep butts in the seats as much as possible and keep the long-time players addicted to the game (like me) interested and sticking around for their sub counts, I can at least appreciate the effort to do something that adds a breath of fresh air to the gameplay.

Remix is certainly that sort of fresh air. While I am sad that it’s only for 3 months at a time and heralds the end of an expansion, I also recognize that as a legitimate game mode, it would get real old, real quick if this were the actual game to log into. Part of the appeal of Warcraft’s gameplay loop IS the work towards progress in each expansion. From improving yourself in Delves, Raiding, Dungeon grinding, and more, it’s a game built on the idea that one should understand their class and role, and overcome challenges with what they have to empower themselves. Whether it’s with a team or single player (seriously, I love Delves).

And with Remix... well... the power fantasy is fun, but once you get everything you want out of it, there’s no real staying power. So 3 months is completely fine. What we get is great, it goes away for a year or two, and then comes back, and players are clambering for it all over again. A once-in-a-while thing as a treat.

While we still have roughly a month left to play, I’ll still continue to enjoy as much of it as I can before it goes away in January. There are a few items I still want to get, a few characters I want to level up and play, and a few achievements I want to snag as well before I go back to the retail grind and get ready for Midnight. It’s been a fun experience, and if I had to rate this game mode, I’d give it a solid 8/10.

Here’s to the next one.

~ Rease Stoneheart

Author Note: This article was first published on Rease Stoneheart's Substack Publication