World of Warcraft’s latest content patch is live and revolutionising the solo play experience, with it’s groovy new addition: Follower Dungeons.
Much like the article title suggests, this feature allows a player to run a dungeon all on their lonesome – but not alone. AI companions can fill out the roles one would expect to find in a dungeon party, rounding out the requirements and preserving your expected dungeon-delving needs.
This brand new tech is bringing a whole new way to run dungeons in Seeds of Renewal!#BuildingAzeroth pic.twitter.com/ay2omMqTfG
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) January 17, 2024
Of course, you don’t need to be all on your own – you can even mix and match with real friends and your robot options. Want to shoot the shit with a mate and run a dungeon to learn a new playstyle? Grab some AI buddies and kick it off.
Players have been providing a ton of feedback on the feature, with the main shocking data point being: The bots do a pretty good job.
…Most of the time.
Damn the follower dungeon ai is super realistic. The hunter stood in every mechanic pic.twitter.com/0hqxhen873
— Fizzlegear (@Fizzlegear) January 21, 2024
Quick victory photo with Captain Garrick and the gang after we all survived our first Follower Dungeon, with me healing as Mistweaver Monk! I haven't played MW since Legion - y'all want to be thankful that I'm not out there healing random dungeons, lol. pic.twitter.com/YV27K9G3Rw
— marie peters ☮️💙 (@MsMiggi) January 19, 2024
It is a pretty exceptional change to the World of Warcraft landscape – though a careful one. It’s worth mentioning that the dungeons are only done at a basic level, no special difficulties or quirks are available via this mode – so pushing mythic keystone dungeons will still require other people with a pulse. There is also a limit to how many dungeons you can do per lockout, meaning that your average player isn’t going to disappear into thin air as they retire to only interact with their robot crew.
The Seeds of Renewal content patch is still only new – but the reception is absolutely through the roof. Besides the follower dungeons, a major lore event also brings the lost capital of Gilneas back to players via a quest chain to remove the occupying Scarlet Crusade forces. Players also get to see the fruits of their labours payoff by seeing a new world tree take root, in the wake of stopping the primordial force of Fyrakk.
For an expansion reaching the end of it’s lifespan, it certainly seems to be bursting at the seams with neat stuff to see and do.
Have you done a follower dungeon yet? Did it feel eerily similar to playing with friends? Let us know in the comments or on social media!
Known throughout the interwebs simply as M0D3Rn, Ash is bad at video games. An old guard gamer who suffers from being generally opinionated, it comes as no surprise that he is both brutally loyal and yet, fiercely whimsical about all things electronic. On occasion will make a youtube video that actually gets views. Follow him on YouTube @Bad at Video Games
