WoW: Dragonflight Heads To The Emerald Dream For Its Next Update

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is finally headed to the Emerald Dream proper in its next update, as a plotline years in the making comes to a head.

Called Guardians of the Dream, Dragonflight's 10.2 update will see players traveling to Azeroth's magical nature realm to defend its fledgling world tree, Amirdrassil, as the Fire Incarnate Fyrakk looks to claim the tree's power for his own. The tree is of significant importance to the Night Elves, who plan to use the tree as their new home after Sylvanas and the Horde burned down their previous home, Teldrassil, as part of the lead up to 2018's Battle for Azeroth expansion. Amirdrassil will host the game's next nine-boss raid, where players will face off against Fyrakk.

It's not the first time players have ventured into the Emerald Dream, which has long been a staple of Warcraft lore. It is, however, the first time the realm will be a fully playable zone. Blizzard said 10.2's Emerald Dream is roughly the size of Dragonlight's sprawling Ohn'ahran Plains zone. Players will be bringing their dragonriding mounts along for the ride, and acquire a new dragonriding mount, the Faerie Dragon.

Like update 10.1 before it, Guardians of the Dream will introduce a new renown track, the Dream Wardens, for players to earn reputation with, as well as a new public event, the Superbloom. Players participating in the event will be helping Amirdrassil bloom, and along the way gain strange powers and unique rewards.

It wouldn't be a major content update without new story quests, and 10.2 will introduce new story chapters as well as the conclusion to the Tyr Reforged questline. It will additionally add a new quest line where the Black Dragonflight leader Wrathion and the Ice Incarnate Vyranoth, who has now joined her former enemies, seek to bring other members of dragonkind into the fold.

Update 10.2 will kick off Dragonflight's third Mythic+ dungeon and PvP season. On the PvP front, a new universal currency will be coming that will be used to upgrade both PvP and PvE gear, building on the system that was introduced in 10.1. The game's most-recent dungeon, Dawn of the Infinite, will make its Mythic+ debut in the form of two separate dungeons, Galakrond's Fall and Murozond's Rise. Battle for Azeroth's Waycrest Manor and Atal'Dazar, along with Legion's Darkheart Thicket (an Emerald Dream-themed dungeon) and Blackrook Hold will also make up Season 3's Mythic+ dungeon pool. Two dungeons that have never before supported Mythic+, Cataclysm's Throne of Tides and Warlords of Draenor's Everbloom, will round out the dungeon pool lineup for the season.

There is no word yet on exactly when Dragonflight update 10.2 will launch, but Blizzard's roadmap has the patch listed as the last significant update coming to the MMO for 2023. Guardians of the Dream will be playable on the game's public test realm later today.

In a recent interview with GameSpot, WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas and executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale discussed how the WoW development team has "reinvented" itself while working on Dragonflight, and how its aggressive 2023 content schedule has led to "staggering" results.