I've never been much of a World of Warcraft fan, but after watching The Remarkable Life of Ibelin on Netflix recently, I've found myself playing it for the time in years (seriously, that film is amazing if you haven't seen it!).
The problem is, as someone who sits on a desktop PC all day every day for Pure Xbox reasons, it's not really what I want to do when the evening rolls around - so I've been exploring the possibilities of playing World of Warcraft on my TV via an Xbox Series X instead. And, I've come to find that it's a surprisingly great experience thanks to NVIDIA GeForce Now.
As we've covered before here at Pure Xbox, you can indeed play World of Warcraft on Xbox by using the Microsoft Edge browser and setting up a (free) GeForce Now account which allows you 60 minutes' worth of access to the game. You can then just start up a new session after you're done, or pay a fee if you want improved features and longer session lengths. I'm sticking to the free version for now, but I don't love the wait times - so might pay up for it eventually!
To find World of Warcraft, you'll need to connect your Battle.net account to GeForce Now (which is easy to do), and then it should appear in your library with a "Play" button. From there, once you're into the server, the task is to enter your Battle.net details - and this is where the first hurdle crops up. As things stand, there's no easy way to enter this with a controller, so plugging in a USB mouse and keyboard was the only obvious solution from what I could see.
And to be honest, I think if you are planning to play World of Warcraft on Xbox, mouse and keyboard is the way to go anyway. It works exactly as you'd expect, and although there is the ability to enable controller support within the game (using the chat command "/Console GamePadEnable 1"), it's a more finicky and time-consuming process to set up. And again, to enable it in the first place, you're going to want a mouse and keyboard anyway.
But then you're in! You're playing World of Warcraft on an Xbox console! It's genuinely quite spectacular to experience the game this way, and for me personally, I haven't noticed any obvious latency issues. You can normally tell immediately when latency is causing a mouse cursor's movements to feel unnatural, but that's not been my experience.
Of course, the big thing is that you'll need a strong and stable internet connection in order to stream World of Warcraft over the cloud, and fortunately I'm running a 500Mbps setup with an ethernet cable in the back of the Series X, which seems to work perfectly in this scenario. Some people are bound to struggle more on a slower connection though.
Apart from that, the only slight issue I've noticed is a need to adjust the UI scaling in the settings, but otherwise it's working pretty much flawlessly. It's still early days and I've only put a few hours into World of Warcraft on Xbox Series X so far, but considering it's been so good, this might become a regular thing for me. I hope you can find use out of it too - keep in mind that you can try World of Warcraft for free, so it won't cost you anything to test WoW on your Xbox console through GeForce Now. Give it a go, and let me know how you get on!
Do you play World of Warcraft on Xbox? Let us know what you think of the experience down below.
Comments 18
I personally think that this will be on next gen Xbox (native). I will give it a smash when that time comes but isn't this the same game that people tried to blame game addiction on?
No thanks. I'm in the special Widow of Warcraft guild.
@FraserG That is interesting but I rather wait for a native version. It sounds like you can't raid unless you have a good connection.
Now the important question Fraser, Horde or Alliance 🤣
@Tasuki Alliance!
@FraserG I currently play horde on both retail and classic, I played Alliance from Lich King all the way to MoP years ago but when I came back to the game I decided to go Horde.
@FraserG For the Horde!
Leeroy Jenkins!
I've never played world of Warcraft, I saw friends play it when I was growing up in the early 2000s but I never had a PC so it was never in my gaming sphere. If we were to receive a native Xbox release there's no doubt in my mind I would absolutely give it a fair shake especially if I can find a buddy to play with, I'd love to go questing and unlocking the secrets of Warcraft. I genuinely hope we see a Xbox release, maybe even a gamepass ultimate tie in or bonuses, can you imagine how many people on Xbox who'd be like me and want to play World of Warcraft for the first time? Exciting to think about 🤔😁
@Kaloudz people blame game "addiction" on all kinds of games. its crazy.
I'd love to try Warcraft on Xbox, I've never played the game but it looks like a ton of fun with friends. I love world building (playing a game to uncover secrets of the world and more within the game). I think it'd be an excellent addition to Xbox.
@Master_Cthulhu70 I'm exactly the same. Those are often my favourite things about games too. Oh I know (about people blaming games for things) do you ever remember that guy that was a lawyer who lobbied for Rockstar to be shut down lol (was it Jack Tompson?).
@Master_Cthulhu70 can you imagine how many people on Xbox who'd be like me and want to play World of Warcraft for the first time?
Unfortunately as a long time player I think you would be pretty dissapointed. If they went with the retail client then you have 10 previous expansions worth of content but they funnel you through the main levelling process so fast that you would only experience about 40% of one expansion and it would make very little sense.
If they go the route of classic and start at OG WoW then it would be much more rewarding, but the gameplay is pretty poor, very easy and relies heavily on nostalgia. We are talking most classes had a 1 or 2 button rotation in OG. You have to wait for 2-3 expansions before it startes to get better.
I still question how viable WoW will ever be on a console without Mods / Weak Auras. You could certainly level and do basic dungeons, but anything endgame like Raiding / Mythics / High End PVP would be awful especially if you had to play against people on a PC.
@FraserG
"The Remarkable Life of Ibelin"
Was a truly remarkable documentary wasn't it. One of those rare slices of television that makes you laugh and cry in equal measure.
@Dalamar73 Absolutely. One of the best documentaries I've watched in a very long time.
It should work well on a toaster
@Ilyn Needing Mods/Add-ons for raiding or any part of the game is a misconception brought on by lazy players. I have been playing WoW since Lich King and never used mods or add-ons. You can play just fine without them. It just requires knowing your rotation and what to do and paying attention.
The need for addons would be just one of many problems. The game is much more complex than console games. Keyboard and mouse would be a must.
@Tasuki I swear we have had this discussion before, or I have had it with someone else but it is not a misconception at all. The Devs have even said that its a problem as they have to keep boosting difficulty to stay ahead of how powerful mods are when developing high end content for the game (Heroic / Mythic / Mythic+). Its why they started using hidden auras because they can't be tracked Also why they have started using clearer graphics in undermine to remove the requirements for addons, there is more going on so keep it clearer.
Clearly if the Devs themselves have admitted its a problem, then yes its a problem. Its just one they can't undo by pulling the rip cord as removing addons now would see 50% of the playerbase quit.
Edit: I to have been playing since it was originally launched, so yes I know how important this stuff is for high end play.
@Ilyn All add ons do is create a toxic community. It causes the elitists to bully, and harass players who don't use them which is one reason I don't raid in PUGs anymore. It splits the player base. As I said I have been raiding for years now with my guild and never used an add on, as long as you pay attention you are good. Add ons are just and excuse for elitists to act high and mighty and treat other people like *****. They forget the objective of the game is to have fun, meet with people and explore a world. Not be the quickest to down a raid or the fastest, it's not a competition, you want something like that go play go a sport or something not an MMO.
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