Blizzard is considering following in Final Fantasy 14's footsteps and adding a story mode to legacy World of Warcraft raids

Playing MMOs solo can often be a difficult thing, but Blizzard is considering making it easier to play some of World of Warcraft's legacy raids alone.

One of Final Fantasy 14's best features is easily its Duty Support system. This particular system allows players to go through main story dungeons without having to queue to wait for other players, instead offering NPCs to help you out. It means you can just play it solo, if playing with others isn't your thing, or it can even just be helpful if you don't want to wait in queues because you're a DPS main and so is everybody else. The Duty Support system took a few years to work across all the expansions, but as of now, they all have it, making for a smoother experience. This isn't something present in most of fellow MMO World of Warcraft, but a similar feature is coming as part of the upcoming The War Within expansion.

The War Within is set to introduce a "story mode" which lets you fight the final bosses of the game's raids solo, so again you don't have to play with others if you don't want to. And in an interview with PC Gamer, game director Morgan Day hinted that such a feature might come to the game's legacy raids too. "In Shadowlands, we added 'Chromie Time,' where you can play past expansions to level up," Day said. "We always talk about the strength of World of Warcraft and how we have so much cool content, and how we can leverage that better. As we've seen with Remix, the team is trying new and different ideas to leverage that."

In turn, this led the team to question whether a story mode could be introduced for players who want to go through earlier stories solo. "We've talked often about, like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I do Wrath of the Lich King Chromie Time, and I end my leveling experience defeating Arthas? How cool would that be?' Right now, you end that experience in a way that's like, 'Wait, what's going on?'"

Day went on to explain that in the old days, raids were "something that only a small group of people could participate in. We've really expanded who the core audience of raids is. We respect that raids are for these people, while also understanding that the story is critical to these other people."

However, for now the focus is just on working on The War Within's story mode, with plans for legacy raids to see the same treatment just being something the team is talking about right now. "It's just a matter of working towards that end goal over time, as we add these new features that allow us to put that tool in our toolbelt."

Last week, head of the Warcraft franchise John Hight announced his departure from Blizzard, though a replacement doesn't seem to have been set just yet.