Just make it a hard reboot.
We’ve gone so far away from the roots of WoW that even a soft reboot really wouldn’t do it for me.
Let’s head back to the Vanilla era in a brand new engine with brand new renditions of EK, Kalimdor, and Outland, new graphics, and make new stories for the characters that truly make up the roster of WoW that people care about that avoid the dumb pitfalls that Blizz has fallen in over and over with these beloved faces.
If the premise for the soft reboot is “The world is in ruins because Sylvanas became warchief,” that’s going to poison the whole thing for me. All I want to log in again and not be shamed for being Horde, and “YOUR WARCHIEF DID THIS” is not going to help with that.
Or no time skip necessary at all, given the number of new towns that popped up with the Cataclysm revamp.
Not gonna happen. Any timeskip long enough for Anduin to be an old man would mean having to kill off virtually every other non-immortal character.
If there is a timeskip it will be 10-20 years at most. Long enough to get Anduin out of his Boy King phase and maybe allow some new blood in positions of power, but short enough to still keep around everybody people care about.
We see Jaina and her brothers in Torghast… If Anduin becomes an Old Man after a Time Skip it won’t age Jaina a bit! Her mother would be dead of old age leaving us to deal with whoever ran Kul Tiras in Jaina’s absence of course…
We’d probably meet Galen Trollbane’s successor, Moria’s son as an adult, the new Gnome King, etc…
Whether Greymane will be dead of Old Age or have the luck of joining us in Shadowlands is another story.
If we time skip to Son of the Wolf Era then Thrall, Rexxar, Mayla, Gazlowe, Geya’rah and Baine’s fates depend on who joins us in Shadowlands… Tauren have reached 110… The Trolls live for centuries…
If we Time Skip to Son of the Wolf then Khadgar is the most interesting person of question… Will he be dead of Old Age(he has been Old for a long time) or will he have spent enough time in the Twisting Nether to wait it out for us?..
I don’t think that the story should be rebooted in such a way. Rather, if there were to be a hard reboot of sorts, I think it would be best executed through a World of Warcraft sequel.
That is to say, using the lore of an Alternate (or future) Azeroth to launch a new World of Warcraft that exists alongside the current game the same way that Classic does. This way they could do a proper reboot/sequel from the ground up using a new engine, new infrastructure, new assets, and removing any other constraints they’re currently bound by with a game that was created in the early aughts - then slowly(?) discontinue support on WoW 2004 until most of the players have transitioned to new WoW.
Honestly I see a time skip as rather likely, as having the hero outside normal time doing something while a time of peace passes on Azeroth would be the only real way to do so and not run into issues with the short lived pcs.
Further it would let the map be completely reinvted and finally bring Silvermoon and Exodar into the world.
My personal thought is about 10-15 years will pass, but the kicker is we arrive about 1-2 years late to be there to prevent a new series of threats from rocking the rebuilt Azeroth.
The first threat to emerge is the return of Azshara and the Naga, who now free from Nzoth their truly massive numbers, as we saw a hint of in Vashjir, are setting out to retake the world. With lingering animosities holding the New Horde and the Alliance from truly working together the Naga are starting to overwhelm the world. At this point the Alliance see’s a ray of hope when around the Dark Portal they learn Yrel is trying to reactive that link, but even though their fueling it with the light like Guldan they need help from our side to stabilize the link. The Horde and Maghar try and warn the Alliance the Lightbound have gone off the zealot deep end, but their warnings fall of deaf ears. Upon learning how the Alliance has taken in the Void Elves, Yrel declares divine crusade on the Alliance, viewing the alliance as corrupt. When we return Ogrimar has fallen to the Naga and Stormwind has been taken over by Yrel.
In the Eastern Kingdoms the resistance to Yrel is based out of a rebuilt SIlvermoon and a rebuilt Gilneas.
On Kalimdor the Nightelves have more less sealed off Mount Hyjal with the combined effort of the Cenarians and Wild Gods desperately maintaining a nature magic barrier to keep Azshara from reclaiming the Night Elves and taking the second well. Meanwhile the Alliance resistance is based out the Bloodmsyt Isles that have been truly colonized and built up by the Draeni. On the Horde side resistance is based out of Thunderbluff, but it is barely recognizable as the zone it is now, where overwhelmed by desperate refugees the Tauren have lost major control to the Maghar and Goblins efforts to develop the region into a true bastion able to resist the Naga and feed and shelter the population that has been forced into a small area.
These events would then play out over 2 Expansions with the first being the War Against the Lightbound and the next being repelling the Naga from Kalimdor.
I think this would be more repetitive than people realize. You’d have to fight the Lich King and Legion all over again. Certain aspects can be reimagined for the better but a lot of it would be the same old. In this case I’d rather go for a soft reboot like “50 yrs have passed since the mortal races banded together to defeat the Burning Legion, following this time the Scourge also fell and blah blah”, otherwise I think it would be too repetitive.