Should You Play Plunderstorm, World Of Warcraft's New 60-Player Battle Royale Mode?

World of Warcraft (WoW) added a 60-player battle royale mode yesterday called Plunderstorm. This limited-time event will be available to the MMORPG's subscribers for the next six weeks. You are dropped into the Arathi Highlands and the only way to win is to outlast others and be the last pirate standing.

To participate, everyone must create a brand new character that’s not affected whatsoever by equipment because there isn’t any. You start each of the battle royale's matches at Level 1 with only a basic attack, but leveling up is possible by defeating creatures and other players, and skills are acquired through looting. There’s the ability to double jump too, as well as a potion/barrel to heal yourself, which has a cooldown of 30 seconds and can be interrupted if not used safely.

Is Plunderstorm fun though? Yes, it’s actually a blast. If you’ve done PvP in WoW before, it’s straight up that…just, you know, in battle royale format. I have basically no experience playing Retail too, as I have solely played the Classic: Season of Discovery version, yet the controls and gameplay felt natural to me. Good, in fact.

Is it worth your time and/or money though? If you already have a WoW subscription, it’s a no-brainer. Come join in on the fun. This is a unique experience that I believe will captivate gamers until Blizzard takes it away from us. It’s easy to jump into a 10-minute match, and the time between matches is quick so there’s little downtime to get angry about losing. If you aren’t subscribed to WoW however, I don’t recommend you drop $15 just to play this for the next month.

Is this the next big thing? Nah. Plunderstorm ain’t that deep. There’s only a handful of skills, and you’ll only reach somewhere between Level 5 and 10 before someone claims victory. However, I’m enjoying it a lot and I hope Blizzard makes Plunderstorm a permanent game mode.

More content would be nice, too. It would be nice if the rewards were cosmetics that I could use on my swashbuckler themself since right now they’re only available for your character(s) in the Retail/Classic/Progression servers (which I don’t play). Maybe even make it free for non-subscribers after Plunderstorm “ends” in six weeks as an incentive to get folks interested in WoW that wouldn’t have checked it out otherwise.