World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic Review – For The Grinders

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is the first expansion for Blizzard’s nostalgic return to the early days of its innovative fantasy MMORPG. WoW Classic has been both an interesting social experiment and a showcase for how to return to a property with its playerbase prioritized first; the latter being demonstrated in the preservation of all the warts and relics of game design that are scattered throughout the Azeroth of the Classic base game.

The game’s first expansion, however, poses an interesting question to its users – how much can Blizzard change without sacrificing the identity of the Classic experience? A level boost being offered to players who purchase it was a major WoW: The Burning Crusade Classic controversy in the buildup to launch, but in the weeks since, the issue has largely fallen by the wayside in the wake of adventurers taking up arms in Outland as part of the expansion. For the most part, the level boost is a modern day convenience that does little to affect the experience of The Burning Crusade Classic, which remains impressive in its scope and its features for a game that originally released in 2007.

The narrative scope of The Burning Crusade Classic is World of Warcraft at its best, a blend of familiar but well-done fantasy tropes blended with some bizarre sci-fi and metaphysical elements to create a cohesive and compelling story. Some of the game’s most iconic villains in 2021 got their spotlight in The Burning Crusade Classic, with Illidan at his unredeemed best still to come and the introduction of Prince Kael’thas all the more impactful now that many players know what awaits him over the span of years following the expansion’s release. Revisiting areas of Outland – in particular, Nagrand remains as amazing to explore as it was in 2007 – still evokes the same sense of wonder and scale.

Gameplay lines up pretty well exactly with expectation for a project like WoW Classic, with The Burning Crusade introducing ten new levels, new abilities for each class, a few new gameplay innovations in the form of first-time classes for each respective faction, and an incredible grind. The latter is certainly one of the appeals to many who consider The Burning Crusade Classic an intriguing prospect, but it will also be the major barrier of entry for anyone considering trying out how WoW used to be in 2007. Simply put, the grind in The Burning Crusade Classic is the kind of all-encompassing, brutal endeavor that rarely has a home in games made in the modern era.

That quality isn’t positive or negative inherently, but will definitely skew people’s opinion of the expansion as a whole. It takes dozens of hours to progress through a measly ten levels, something that’s either an exciting prospect for a returning veteran or a headscratcher for those unfamiliar with the timesink that was classic MMORPG experiences. As a game in 2021, The Burning Crusade Classic asks an awful lot of its players, both in terms of time and patience. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator, but getting killed by the Fel Reaver in Hellfire Peninsula is only charming the first time it happens, while the reputation grind at the end game is a reminder that, for all the flaws of modern expansions like Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, the MMORPG has come a long way in how it presents the “game after the game” that awaits players who hit max level.

That said, there likely aren’t many who are playing through The Burning Crusade Classic who aren’t already intimately familiar with its time-thirsty antics, and those who are arriving in the Outlands for the first time are probably there to experience exactly that. While the grind of Burning Crusade Classic is its biggest weakness, it’s also a major strength in the eyes of a huge number of its prospective players. While the expansion shows its age – arguably even more than the WoW Classic base experience – it’s also a reminder of just how powerful some of the game’s earliest expansions were as a whole experience. Everything earned in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is well and truly earned, and the shared suffering of players just trying to raise their reputation or get a best-in-slot item for their main is something that can result in unexpected friendships.

Ultimately, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is more of the same; a time capsule that successfully protects and recreates the experience of a 2007 MMORPG expansion and brings it to 2021 with deftness and care. It’s not a perfect expansion – certainly by modern day standards especially – but it’s also not trying to be. With that in mind, it’s hard not to recommend The Burning Crusade Classic to anyone who longs for the old days of MMORPG grinding, and it’s a great history lesson for those who missed out on that generation of games if they have the patience for it.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is available now on PC. Screen Rant was provided with a digital code and one month of game time for the purpose of this review.

About The Author

Cody Gravelle
(1587 Articles Published)

Cody is Screen Rant’s Game Reviews Editor. He joined the team in 2018 and has been reporting on games pretty well every day since – except on weekends, where he’s typically playing them instead. Despite being in a field ostensibly about critiquing and enjoying quality games, his most played game of 2019 was Fate/Grand Order – something unlikely to change in 2020 and beyond.

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