Blizzard has announced via press release that their latest expansion for World of Warcraft, Legion, has sold 3.3 million copies by the game’s first day.
This number includes the amount of people who pre-ordered it up to the game’s August 30th launch, as well as those who picked it up after the expansion went live. Per the press release, this also matches “the all-time record achieved by previous expansions.” Blizzard noted that the player base for World of Warcraft is now on par with what was seen during the Cataclysm expansion launch, though to be perfectly frank this means absolutely nothing; the subscriber base always peaks during the release of a new expansion thanks to the interest and intrigue of new content.
“It’s been a thrill to see players hunting demons, powering up Artifacts, and freely exploring all the new zones in Legion,” said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. “We worked hard to make this the best World of Warcraft expansion yet, and we look forward to providing players with even more content as Legion’s epic story unfolds in the months ahead.”
Player reaction has been positive thus far regarding Legion, which has people wondering if World of Warcraft can return to its Wrath of the Lich King-era heights. Of course, Legion hasn’t even been live for a full month yet, so we’re still a long ways off to seeing how everything unfolds in the grand scheme of things. While Blizzard hasn’t exactly been delivering quality content throughout an expansion’s lifecycle, they’ve almost certainly nailed launches.
I’ve been able to avoid the allure thus far, but it’s been hard with all of the positive word of mouth going.