WoW Remix Highlights One Major Missed Opportunity

With the release of World of Warcraft Remix: Mists of Pandaria, players are once again delving into the mysterious titular continent. Through this adventure, they are experiencing a wild story filled with new characters, dangerous foes, and some of the best leveling that WoW has ever seen. Whether it is for the first time or the tenth, players seem to be loving this iteration of the expansion. Yet, although it has been fun, World of Warcraft Remix also highlights a pretty strange decision.

In Pandaria’s very first zone, players spent a lot of time recruiting the Hozen or Jinyu to their cause. It is a major part of the story, with both races helping fight the player’s enemies. Because of that, one would think that these races would become core parts of their respective factions. But, for some reason, neither have really been mentioned much since, as if they never really existed in the first place. What could have been two brand-new races seems to have been left behind, and it is time for that to change.

Mists of Pandaria Gave WoW The Perfect Set of New Races

The Hozen and Jinyu Were a Vital Part of Pandaria

When players first arrive at the mysterious continent of Pandaria, the Horde and Alliance are instantly locked into a war. This was when the faction war was at the forefront, so naturally, both sides wanted to recruit new allies to assist them. And luckily, Pandaria was filled with races waiting to be swayed. Although the Pandarens ended up taking a more neutral stance, the Alliance and Horde still had the mighty Hozen and Jinyu to turn to.

Both of these races are introduced pretty early on in Mists of Pandaria, with the Horde recruiting the Hozen and the Alliance recruiting the Jinyu. Players must then spend much of the first zone assisting these races with whatever they need, as they also fight back against their enemy faction and the growing danger of the Sha. These two then carry over to the other zones, becoming a core part of Pandaria’s story. But when the second Siege of Orgrimmar came to a close, both races seemingly vanished from Azeroth.

WoW Has Seemingly Left the Hozen and Jinyu Behind

The only other time the Hozen and Jinyu appear is during Battle for Azeroth when players can discover a few of them dotting Zandalar and Kul’Tiras. Outside of that, neither race is really mentioned, nor do they have a significant place within the story. Instead, they both seem to have been left behind after players spent so long bringing them to their side. And that seems like a really strange choice.

While Blizzard may have had to be a bit creative with the character models, the Hozen and Jinyu feel like they would have been the perfect races to join the growing roster. They could have been added in a later Mists of Pandaria patch, or they could have been one of the first Allied Races players recruited in Battle for Azeroth. It felt like one of the main selling points of that feature was that players would finally be able to play as prominent races from the current and past expansions, so there is seemingly no reason why these two Pandaria races were left out of the fun.

It may be too late to go back and change things now, but the Worldsoul Saga will likely need all the races to come together, so it might be time to finally bring them into the fold. The release of World of Warcraft Remix has once again put them in the spotlight, and now all Blizzard has to do is deliver on this missed opportunity. Without their help, the Horde and Alliance may have never made it off Pandaria alive, and because of that, neither deserve to be left to gather dust.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the ninth expansion pack for the iconic massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

Dragonflight features an overhauled user interface, raises the level cap to 70, and introduces a new race and class. 

Released

November 28, 2022

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