For the first time in 20 years, World of Warcraft will let solo players fight its hardest boss in a new 'Story Mode' raid difficulty

World of Warcraft players have spent years asking Blizzard to let them do raids without a full group of players so they can just see how the story ends. Starting today in The War Within, that will finally be possible—with some minor caveats.

'Story Mode' is a new difficulty setting available for The War Within's first raid, Nerub-ar Palace. It lets you walk into the raid as a solo player (or with up to nine other players) and fight the last boss at a reduced difficulty, essentially giving the expansion's campaign a proper finale. The boss won't drop normal raid loot, but it'll let you turn in one final quest with its own rewards.

To access Story Mode, you have to finish the entire campaign, including the quests that only unlock once you reach the level 80 cap. The specific quest that sends you into the raid comes from an NPC in the new capital city Dornogal and has a few steps to finish before you can take on the boss. The reward for defeating the boss is a bunch of currency for upgrading your gear, which is pretty nice considering you can do this all by yourself.

Earlier this year, I spoke with associate game director Morgan Day and he told me Story Mode is still sort of an experiment for Blizzard. He told me the development team has already discussed what it would look like if they added Story Mode to older dungeons, especially those you encounter while leveling up.

"We've talked often about, like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I do Wrath of the Lich King Chromie Time, and I end my leveling experience defeating Arthas? How cool would that be?'" Day said. "Right now, you end that experience in a way that's like, 'Wait, what's going on?'"

WoW has always locked its biggest story events behind its raids and even though you can breeze through them with the Looking For Raid tool, it would be nice to see a regular option for solo players. The War Within just introduced Delves, mini dungeons that can be completed alone for gear rewards that rival many of the group activities in the MMO. If it continues, Story Mode would be an excellent complement to WoW's growing number of solo-focused features.

"This is the first time we've done it exactly like this. We're going to try this out," Day said. "We want to understand how you guys respond to it, because that's going to shape what we do next. Maybe people prefer something else. Maybe they want a different version of it.