January 16, 2007. Assuming all goes planned in the world of Azeroth (and at Blizzard), the denizens will have access to the dark portal and the Outlands. The Outlands is a completely new continent, separate from Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. It offers players level 55 and above a massive amount of new content. We take a hands on look at the game still in its beta state.

The long awaited expansion to the hugely popular World of Warcraft will be released soon. The Burning Crusade takes players into a new part of Warcraft continued from Warcraft 3. The lore picks up as the mortal races of Azeroth enter the Dark Portal and go to the Orc home world of Draenor. The first thing you’ll notice when you step through the portal is that there is, in fact, a war raging in the Outlands. Both Alliance and Horde are throwing their combined forces into the fray as they attempt to stop those who wish to destroy their homeland from entering the portal to Azeroth. Soon you’ll be flown over this massive battle and taken to the relative safety of your respective factions base of operations in the area.

The expansion offers 7 new regions in the outland alone. You can tell the art team at Blizzard has been hard at work here. The first region may not seem like anything special to most players. The ground is mostly a barren wasteland. But looking up, one can see the immense amount of attention put into the new zones. It’s aptly named Hellfire peninsula, as it gives the feeling of a very war torn environment. Moving westward, you enter the Zangramarsh. As you might guess from the name, this is a predominately swampy area. Lush flora encompasses the area and you may get the feeling that this is a place a druid might hang out, which they do. The other areas are equally, or even more amazing visually than the first two, so it just gets better as you go along. Also expect many new dungeons and instances, including 25 man content.

To help you along in the new Outlands, Blizzard has implemented some new game features. The level cap is being raised from 60 to 70, allowing characters to become even more powerful. In addition, players will get 10 more talent points which they can spread across their 3 revamped talent trees, maxing each tree to 41 points instead of 31. Also expect a lot of new gear. Even the most veteran players will soon be replacing epic items with new gear. This new gear will also be socketed, allowing players to add jewels to items to make them even more powerful. This is where a new profession comes in. Jewelcrafting is the art of taking precious stones and making them into trinkets, necklaces, and the items needed for the aforementioned sockets. All professions have their caps raised to 375 and have many new abilities and recipes.

Of course the expansion doesn’t alone affect those at higher levels. Two new races are brought to the game. Blood Elves, a light skinned relative of the night elf, sides with the horde, as they have lingering distrust for the alliance races. The alliance race on the other hand, the Dranei, are the big blue friends of the alliance. They harbor a hatred for the Blood Elves so its only natural that they side against them. These large blue creatures are originally from the Outlands, or Draenor. They took a ship, fleeing Draenor and it crash landed on Azeroth. Both races come with 2 new areas for them to start out in, available to players regardless if they have the expansion. In addition to this, these races can play as classes previously unavailable to specific factions. The Dranei can now be Shaman, while the Blood Elves can become paladins. This should put both factions on a more equal playing field.

As said, The release date is planned for January 16, 2007. There will be a regular version or a collectors edition. The special edition includes the game, a special in-game Nether whelp pet, an art book, trading cards, the soundtrack and a mouse pad with a map of the outlands. Both versions of the game will be the same, aside from the cosmetic pet. With all the new content, and the races, adventurers will have their hands full for a long time coming.