The demons, and their hunters, have arrived in Azeroth. World of WarCraft’s upcoming expansion, Legion’s pre-release events have begun, and we’ve been there, done that to bring you the latest from the front lines. Long story short, demon hunters are now everywhere, but the number of actual demons greatly outnumbers them.

The demon hunter class is available now for those who pre-ordered Legion and have a character over level 70 on the server. I created mine, a blood elf named Kiljoi (only blood elves and night elves can be demon hunters) and began making my way through the introductory sequence. The events – not to spoil anything – are fast moving and keep you going from encounter to encounter, gaining new powers and allies as you go.

Legion Demon Hunter screenshot

The experience reminds me a lot of WarCraft’s previous hero class, the death knight, introduced back in Wrath of the Lich King. It takes place in a phased, isolated area that you are locked into until you finish the story. Once back in the regular world, you will see people playing the new class everywhere. Though that may be a good thing, lore-wise because there are now also a crap-ton (scientific term, that) of demons in Azeroth as well.

Demonic invasions happen across both old-world continents and consist of beating back waves upon waves of demons, leading up to a massive boss demon encounter. While they are better tuned then they were early on in testing, the boss demons still hit like a truck and take a ton of players to take down. I can see these events getting harder as the expansion gets closer, when people start to get burned out on it. There are loot rewards for participating to encourage players to keep at it, but after doing it a handful of times, it starts to get really repetitive.

Level 100 players can also invade the Broken Shores in a new group scenario. I took main, a human paladin, through the event and while it isn’t terribly difficult, the story content is great. We even got to confront Gul’Dan of the Burning Legion. It started out so well, as you can see me on the front lines with him backed into a corner.

Legion pre-launch event

That’s me, on my bear, standing on the front lines

Things quickly turned south when it came to light that he could summon demons pretty much on a whim, which – let’s be honest – is totally OP. Blizzard, please nerf whatever class he is.

Legion pre-launch event

Well this seems like a fair fight. We got this, right guys? … guys?

Legion in its entirety with the new post- level 100 leveling content, class order halls and new group instances will launch on August 30th.