World of Warcraft's most recent patch soars with fun additions that last just long enough

World of Warcraft's latest patch has delivered on its promise of a compact, polished piece of mid-expansion gameplay—and has done a good job of keeping players entertained until new versions of timewalking rewards and Plunderstorm's battle royale sail in as early as Tuesday.

Released in mid-December, Content Update 11.0.7 delivers a solid, iterative improvement on Blizzard's "island of limited gameplay" mode, which has been a feature of World of Warcraft ever since the Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle debuted in the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

The new Siren Isle launched with many of the same features as those original two: a smaller, limited geography that does not allow flying; a good collection of rare monsters that intermittently spawn; daily repeatable quests that reward a new currency and some reputation; and outdoor events that require larger groups of players to complete.

While Siren Isle doesn't have the full-scale raid bosses of those original two islands, it does offer some solid quality of life improvements, even as compared to the most recent version of island adventure in Warcraft, the Forbidden Reach island of Dragonflight patch 10.0.7.

An upgraded tour of the islands

While flying isn't initially allowed on the island, it will be eventually—right about the time when players have turned their attention to the returning pirate-themed battle royale mode, Plunderstorm. This means that those wanting to return to finish farming the many cosmetic sets and other goodies from Siren Isle currency won't have to walk forever.

Even though the return of wings to the island could come (some players would say a lot) sooner, they at least have the assistance of cheap rocket boosters, which for a sip of currency allows players to hurtle into the air and soar toward their intended destination in a jump or three. These are surprisingly fun to use and relatively cheap, and represent a wonderful addition to the initial gameplay.

The major kill-this-boss events on the island, triggered by players turning in currency for them at a mission table in town, are still popping up reliably even as of this week, three weeks after the launch. They carry another recent WoW improvement: Instead of spawning instantly, causing players to miss it if they are in the middle of a fight (or at the aforementioned table), they instead spawn a zone-wide announcement and a two-minute wait, giving everyone plenty of time to arrive.

Rare monsters are somewhat harder to get to for a kill, but for those wanting to farm them for items or achievements, a new tweak helps. Once a rare spawns and dies, it will respawn again five to 10 minutes later, then repeat once more, before disappearing quietly for its next respawn cycle. That means players who want to kill it can stick around if they miss the first spawn.

The island offers a beautiful "collect these rarely-dropped items and combine them to summon it" mount, the storm crow Thrayir, Eyes of the Siren. Getting Thrayir is a grind and a half—again, probably a bit more than really necessary—but the reward is worth the wait, particularly because the amount of killing necessary means the electrified crow is relatively rare.

The "storm mode" for the island, which is triggered by players when they have completed several daily quests, changes the weather, adds more-difficult mobs and offers a few additional quests. While it's a good, novel idea, the implementation is a bit lackluster. Beyond the way things look, gameplay doesn't change much, so it feels like a switch you're throwing to tick off the last few things on your list.

A familiar "turn in daily quests to earn a mount" mode exists on the island as well in the form of the Prismatic Snapdragon. Players can change its color, a new feature for Warcraft ground mounts, but it is perhaps not the most exciting cosmetically—and it doesn't fly. Still, the quests are easy, and it's a reason to return to the island.

A powerful new ring, Cyrce's Circlet, offers loot for even the most advanced raiders and dungeon runners. Unlike the Snapdragon (and flying), the ring isn't too much of a grind, and while the effects are low-key, it's a solid best-in-slot item for most players. Getting the upgrade tokens to increase its power is easy, and the citrine gems that give it unique effects are generally simple to farm.

The only exception is one frequently-popular citrine that drops from one of the three bonus events on the island, which stubbornly refuses to complete and award the gem to many players. Depending on where the boss is positioned, where the player stands, how long it takes to kill, and a number of other utterly perplexing factors, it fails to drop for many, despite dozens of attempts, and hasn't been hotfixed. It is the only major bug on the island to persist far past launch.

A bit of story to go with the battles

The patch also brings two questlines to wrap up the story of Dalaran, the magical city destroyed at the beginning of The War Within, and introduce the storyline players will follow through the next big patch. A quiet series of quests, it introduces the Harronir, a new troll-like species that players speculate will eventually be a playable allied race for the Horde. (Alliance players got the Earthen dwarves at the start of the expansion.)

Neither questline offers the dramatic revelations of earlier campaign chapters—except perhaps the references to a new girlfriend for our favorite mage leader Khadgar, whose survival was revealed earlier in the campaign—but they are both well voice acted and include cinematics that set the stage for the next dramatic patch to come.

None of this gameplay, or the fairly pedestrian Siren Isle cosmetic transmog outfits the island's currency offers as rewards, are enough to capture players' attention for too long. That's fine, as it appears that's precisely what they are designed to do. As most players finish the quests and wind down into maintenance mode on the island, keeping up with the bare minimum of farming needed to finish Thrayir or improve their ring, two new challenges are on the horizon.

The "Turbulent Timeways" dungeon event begins this week, giving players who do four of the returning, historic dungeons a buff that will build for each week they complete them. Each week offers dungeons from a different expansion, and at the end of the four weeks, players who have earned the buff each week will earn the Timely Buzzbee mount, a nicely understated Bronze-dragonflight-themed black, antique gold and ivory-colored mount.

Plunderstorm returns Tuesday, January 14, completing on February 18 before the fanfare over the next patch 11.1, and its new dungeon and raid, launches in late February or early March. The previous iteration of Plunderstorm in spring 2024 lasted exactly six weeks.

That means patch 11.0.7, which also included a surprising amount of balancing changes to character classes, dungeons and their currency rewards, and a tiny bit of cosmetic updates (new half-elf ears for humans!), performs solidly as a mid-tier palate cleanser of content. It's not a world-shattering Warcraft patch, but it's a great iteration on a familiar model, and a welcome addition over the holidays and into the first two months of the year.