WoW Devs on Tyrande's new role: "What it means for her to protect this new realm"

The Emerald Dream is the latest area that players will be introduced to in World of Warcraft, and this will be the size of Ohn’aran Plains, giving players a huge new area to explore in the game as of patch 10.2.

However, will we see hints of the Emerald Dream we used to know and love from World of Warcraft: Legion, or will that Dream be long forgotten? We spoke to Senior WoW Devs Josh Augustine and Allison Steele about what players can expect from the Emerald Dream.

• Check out our discussion with the devs about the new Superbloom event

Return to the Emerald Dream

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Whilst players will be returning to the Emerald Dream, it’s not the Emerald Dream that everyone knows and loves. It is a smaller segment, telling the story of Amirdrassil, the new world tree.

“This zone is a slice of the Emerald Dream, it’s not trying to encapsulate the entire thing," Augustine explains.

Despite that, the team explained that this zone is still pretty sizable and will have a lot of content for players to enjoy, as it is about the size of Ohn’ahran Plains, giving new and returning players of the game plenty to explore and many quests to uncover. 

For that hit of nostalgia, we will see the return of characters who started in Legion, come back to tell their stories, such as Merithra, Tyrande and the rest of the gang who helped grow the Emerald Dream to begin with. Most importantly, we see Tyrande become the leader of the Green Dragonflight.

“We’ll definitely dive deeper into that and what it means for her to be taking the reins and helping protect this world dream,” explains Augustine. 

"There will be a lot of those classic elements to take us back and make us feel nostalgic, such as seeing slumbering Druids, battlefields, protecting the World Tree, and more classic aspects of the Dream."

Make sure to keep reading GGRecon for more articles on World of Warcraft. Why not check out our interview with the WoW devs on how they manage to keep the narrative fresh to this day?