Blizzard extends World of Warcraft draw distance with Legion update

Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft: Legion not only includes new content, but also a graphical improvement of the game. Increasing the draw distance makes it possible to look further and see objects at greater distances.

The graphical improvements coming with the arrival of Legion will be visible not only in the new Broken Isles area, but also in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, Blizzard writes. Compared to World of Warcraft: Warlords, the distance from which players can look in the virtual world is doubled. In the Ultra setting that is currently 1300 game units, in Legion it is 2600 units with the same setting.

Blizzard says it can make the improved draw distance possible by implementing ‘level of detail’ on 3D models in the game. Objects, such as trees and buildings that are at a distance, can therefore be represented with fewer polygons, which requires less computing power. The developer has also made optimizations in the way water and terrain are displayed.

In Legion the graphical setting options will also be adjusted. The Low, Fair, Good, High and Ultra options disappear and give way to a scale of 1 to 10. According to Blizzard, 3 corresponds to Low and 7 is comparable to High. The highest setting of 10 offers a higher image quality than the current Ultra setting, the draw distance increases to 3500 game units.

World of Warcraft: Legion will be released on August 30.

Comparison of current Ultra settings with new Graphics Level 8 setting