Mists Of Pandaria's Excellent Opening Cinematic Revealed

The release date for World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is right around the corner, and as such, Blizzard has started to ramp up the marketing. Today we're being treated to a brand new cinematic trailer for the game, and we have to say it's pretty excellent. The question is: will it be enough to get players interested in returning to World of Warcraft?

The trailer focuses on a Human and an Orc who have washed ashore in a strange place after a naval battle. Once they discover each other, they begin fighting it what appears to be some kind of old ruins, destroying some ancient-looking relics in the process. It's then that one of the Pandaren interrupts and shows them both what's what. After both of them have been beaten back by the Panda, the Human and the Orc realize that they have washed up on Pandaria, and we're treated to shots of sprawling, beautiful wilderness, populated by Pandaren who are training for battle.

It's definitely one of the better cinematic trailers we've seen in a long time. With an exciting battle, a wonderful soundtrack, and a little bit of humor, cinematic trailers don't get much better. Blizzard knows it has to impress too, as World of Warcraft's numbers have been slipping a bit lately. Couple that with the fact that reaction to Mists of Pandaria was mixed when the expansion was revealed at BlizzCon last year, and Blizzard has its work cut out for it.

World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers will almost certainly increase once Mists of Pandaria is released, but the hard part will be getting those returning (or new) subscribers to hang around once they've finished the expansion. Blizzard has wowed us with the opening cinematic, but now it has to wow us with the expansion itself. We don't have much longer to wait, as Mists of Pandaria is releasing on September 25.