You Can Finally Play as a Dragon (Kind of) in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight

Given that the next major expansion to World of Warcraft is themed around dragons, it’s only natural that we finally get to actually play as a dragon with the new Dracthyr Evoker hero class. It may not look exactly like the dragons we’re used to seeing fly around Azeroth, but that’s probably for the best — the actual Dracthyr have quite a bit more going on.We spoke with game director Ion Hazzikostas and narrative director Steve Danuser ahead of the announcement about the Dracthyr, beginning with a fundamental question: why make a combination hero class/race where Dracthyr can only be Evokers, and Evokers can only be Dracthyr?Hazzikostas says that the team started with the concept of the Dracthyr race, and came to the conclusions about the Evoker class organically from the lore.”Once we really got excited about the idea of chasing a customizable full player race that delivered the fantasy of being a dragon, being a descendant of the dragons in Azeroth, well, then the natural next question was: what classes can they be or should they be? Pretty rapidly, we realized that none of our existing classes was exactly the right fit. The fantasy of being a dragon— they call down powers that are different than what mages or warriors or any of our known classes do. And of course, by their nature, they have these unique physical gifts, like literal wings and claws, the ability to unleash breath weapons…An elf is never going to be able to literally take flight and do a soaring deep breath over their enemies. Only a Drakthyr can do that.”Danuser broke down the Dracthyr a bit further for us, describing their magical abilities that are tied with each of the five dragonflights: blue, red, green, gold, and black. As shown in the Deep Dive video, the class specializations of the Dracthyr allow them to be either a healer, focusing on green and bronze magic, or a ranged damage dealer, focusing on red and blue. They can cast magic while flying around the battlefield, and have a new ability called “Empower” that involves holding down a button to charge up the next spell, changing its power or how many targets it hits. It’s a first-of-its-kind ability for World of Warcraft.What’s most immediately striking about the Dracthyr, however, isn’t their magic or their abilities. It’s their customization. Dracthyr don’t look entirely like the dragon models we normally see in Azeroth, which is probably sensible given that players actually have to be able to control them in battle and a giant flying beast running around a battle arena would cause some serious game imbalance. But Dracthyr are still quite draconic, and can customize two forms — human and dragon — with different colors, scale styles, and other visual tidbits reminiscent of the different dragonflights. They can even have multicolored hair.World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Reveal Art and ScreenshotsDon’t worry, though. A Dracthyr’s aesthetic isn’t tied to the magic they use. Even though in the story a green dragon explicitly uses green dragon magic, Dracthyr will get to use all five types regardless of appearance.As a hero class, the Dracthyr will start at a higher level than other classes and will begin in a unique starting zone located as a part of the new Dragon Isles. They’ll begin their story with a unique introductory questline, before joining other players to explore the rest of the Dragon Isles throughout Dragonflight.Sign-ups for the alpha and beta for Dragonflight will soon be live on the official WoW website, though the expansion does not yet have a release date. We also chatted with Hazzikostas and Danuser about the big changes to fundamental WoW systems in Dragonflight, and rumors of a WoW console port. And we spoke to the WoW Classic leads about some of the changes coming in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and where Classic might go next.Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.



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