Warcraft Rumble Season 6 unleashes joyful chaos with raids, sieges, and more!

Warcraft Rumble Season 6 is now live! This season features the arrival of raids, sieges, plus brand-new Cenarion Earth and Moon spell. We sat down with Warcraft Rumble game producer Elhora Davis and senior game designer Brendan Farrell for an exclusive interview about what players can expect when they jump into the game.

The new season boasts Molten Core as Warcraft Rumble's first-ever raid starting on June 5. This feature is reminiscent of the Warcraft 3 battles and those early 40-player raids from World of Warcraft. For example, the gameplay has players battling through waves of enemies before duking it out against Ragnaros himself. However, the twist is that it involves only one player and a guild member. In the interview with esports.gg, Davis revealed the reasoning behind this.

"It brings me a lot of joy to hear you say that — that it reminds you of Warcraft 3 and the raids in general with the big 40-man [ones]. I think that's awesome. I think that informed a lot of what we wanted to create with Rumble," Davis said. "I think that we wanted to kind of harken to that signature raiding experience that was indeed in World of Warcraft, but we wanted our own take on it."

"And so rather than maybe the the epic kind of 40-versus-40 or 20-man [raids] or what have you, we figured that maybe having just like a more intimate paradigm with a partner would really kind of help expand that playing field and also add a whole new layer of complexity and depth to being able to take on interactions," Davis continued.

This approach, according to Davis, allows players to combine armies while balancing strengths and weaknesses through complementary abilities. For example, Lucifron has unique minions that can mind control units. Therefore, working together to sacrifice less valuable units like Angry Chickens to counter this is a viable strategy.

Meanwhile, Farrell noted that teammates should consider their arrangement of leaders and units for the different stages of Molten Core. They can save flying units for lava-filled maps or choose Rend Blackhand as a leader to make Flying troops cost less gold.

In terms of which raid boss that Farrell is most excited about, it's Garr. "He does these crazy earthquakes, which is, I think, just like a really cool ability conceptually. A lot of bosses and minis in Rumble — they attack with weapons or they use missiles or magic. And this earthquake is thematically [a] really new, fun idea — the ground shaking and all these minis take damage. And it poses quite a fun challenge."

Additionally, when players clear the Molten Core Raid, they're rewarded with Ragnaros himself as a playable leader unit. "He's really different. He doesn't move up the lanes, he attaches to the nearest building that you control when you deploy him," Farrell revealed. "And he basically just becomes like a big meat shield for it. And his talents are really cool. And they sort of give you that feeling that you're controlling like a very tiny raid boss."

Davis agreed, noting how the Warcraft Rumble team enjoys Ragnaros' interpretation in Hearthstone as well. In the card game, the Ragnaros Lightlord legendary says "Live, insect!" instead of his usual "Die, insect!" line.

Another first in Warcraft Rumble is the arrival of sieges on May 29. Stormwind Siege features three bosses in total. These are General Marcus Jonathan, Innkeeper Allison, and Highlord Bolvar Fordragon. In the interview with esports.gg, Farrell described the siege feature as a way to ease players into raids.

"When we were thinking of sieges, we knew raids were coming. We thought it'd be great to give players another way to experience some of the same mechanics as raids, but as sort of like a stepping stone up to rates because raids are going to be really difficult," Farrell said, adding an example of how Bolvar has a bouncing shield that hits multiple targets.

Davis agreed, emphasizing how the goal behind sieges is to prepare players for raids as end-game content. "So I think it's safe to say that if you can overcome Stormwind, then you'll be better prepared to experience Molten Core and just subsequent raids in general."

As for which Stormwind Siege boss that Davis is the most excited for players to experience, it's Innkeeper Allison. This is a unique enemy who throws barrels at units and towers. Her theme is similar to a chaotic tavern brawl.

"So we have kind of that going on and players are going to be navigating sort of barrels and chaos. And there's Moonberry Juice, which is poisonous and terrible and I'm just really excited for people to see that and meet Innkeeper Allison — our muscular babe," Davis said.

In terms of the new Warcraft Rumble Season 6 spell that's available starting May 29, it's Earth and Moon. This is a hybrid spell that lets players alternate between Entangling Roots and Starfall. As a Cenarion spell, it logically synergizes well with Cenarion units.

Farrell gave esports.gg some behind-the-scenes details on what it takes to playtest spells and units before they go live, noting that the process involves extensive balancing. Usually, the first person who designed and built it will take a look at it. Next, the mini is tested out internally in a game engine. After playing it against other minis and seeing how it performs, the Warcraft Rumble team considers player enjoyment and meta trends.

"And that's how we decide things like how much damage should Starfall do, how much gold should each of these two forms cost. Even conceptually — is this idea of fun? Is having a mini that swaps forms exciting? Interesting? In the case of Earth and Moon, the answer was yes."

That's all for now. Warcraft Rumble Season 6 is now live for all players to enjoy. Stick around on esports.gg for more news, interviews, and updates!