Blizzard introduces WoW Plunderstorm, a battle royale with pirates

For weeks, Blizzard has been hinting at the possibility of something pirate-ey coming to World of Warcraft. We know we’re going to get something that’ll give off Pirates of the Caribbean vibes, but a battle royale certainly wasn’t on everyone’s list. Enter Plunderstorm, a 60-player pirate-themed battle royale mode.

This is the first time the mode has appeared in WoW, and it’s also not using existing characters or on standard servers. Once you log into the client, you’ll have to choose between the game’s normal servers and the Plunderstorm event. The battle royale is now available as of the release of Patch 10.2.6, and boy, is it going to be a chaotic time.

What is World of Warcraft Plunderstorm All About?

Plunderstorm is a limited-time event that will be available for all WoW players for several weeks. The goal? Be the last pirate standing while plundering the Arathi Highlands to find upgrades, abilities, and loot to store in your booty.

Bethany Stout, Orlando Salvatore, and Jeremy Feasel explained in the latest WoWCast episode that the Plunderstorm matches will start with everyone plundering booty and battling monsters. The goal is to get a build working together before pushing into PvP territory as the match draws on and players are pushed closer. The battle royale has a solo and duo mode in separate matches.

How to Play Plunderstorm

When you log into the (modern) WoW client, you’ll see the Plunderstorm logo beside the World of Warcraft logo on the upper left side of your screen. If you click the Plunderstorm logo, you’ll be transported into a new game environment with a different user interface.

What’s excellent about Plunderstorm is that you don’t have to purchase any World of Warcraft expansions. The only thing you need to have is an active WoW subscription or Game Time to participate in the high-stakes matches. This means that besides retail WoW players, Classic folks can join in on the plundering by installing the modern World of Warcraft client.

Getting Started in the Battle Royale WoW

When a match begins, you’ll find yourself on a parrot headed to a pirate encampment on the southeast corner of the Arathi Highlands. Upon landing, you’ll receive a quest from Keg Leg to collect a certain amount of spells or kill several monsters before heading off with other players.

At first, you won’t have any talents. You’ll have to pick up abilities from the spawn items off the ground. The abilities are loosely based on actual WoW abilities, whether they’re basic talents, kits, or Covenant/legendary spells. Feel free to mix and match them as you’d like; be the battle mage you’ve always dreamed of. Another thing to note about Plunderstorm is that there are no auto attacks—just triggered abilities. Also, there’s no such thing as fall damage, and everyone can double jump.

Your abilities and spells can be upgraded by unearthing higher quality versions from treasure chests, finding the same ability around the map, and stacking it to Rank 3. There are plenty of plundering opportunities here, with various treasure chests, different rarities, and all types of abilities stashed within Arathi Highlands.

If you kill monsters, they’ll drop gold you can collect by running over them, akin to Diablo’s gameplay. The currency is called Plunder, and the more you accumulate it, the more Renown progress you’ll get with Keg Leg. In each of the 40 Renown levels, you’ll get a reward for your efforts without visiting a vendor. To get Plunder, you must defeat other players and monsters, complete quests, win matches, and open treasure chests. Each Renown level takes about 2,500 Plunder.

WoW Plunderstorm Rewards

There are plenty of rewards to earn in Plunderstorm, two of which are exclusive to the match winners: an eyepatch and a tabard. You can earn pets, cosmetics, and titles by progressing through the reward track. Among these include Bubbles the crab pet, 750 Trader’s Tender from “Keg Leg’s Crew” for the Trading Post, the grandiose Polly Roger parrot mount, and many more.

You can click on Da’kash Grimledger in front of the spawn point in Plunderstorm’s lobby to view your Renown progress, summon pets, change titles, or apply transmog and weapon customizations. Since each match lasts about 5-8 minutes and will award players with 500 Plunder, there’s not much grinding for you to do. You can complete one quest per match, and there’s no limit. Salvatore stated in the WoWCast that there’s no need to do everything in one sitting. Blizzard doesn’t want Plunderstorm to feel like you must play it every day for the six weeks it’s active.

Will WoW Plunderstorm Be Available in the Future?

Plunderstorm will only run for six weeks, and that’s that. However, Blizzard may bring back the experimental game mode in the future if the player feedback is positive. Only time will tell whether we’ll see the battle royale within World of Warcraft.