My friend and I once had a discussion about World of Warcraft, and we agreed that the best part of each new expansion pack, more than any of the new content that gets added, are the new opening cinematics Blizzard creates. We were joking, but the fact remains, these short videos have more impressive production values than quite a lot of movies that hit the theaters these days.

At this year’s Gamescom, Blizzard revealed the opening cinematic for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion, which goes live just over a month from now, on September 25th. Featuring a shipwreck, a fight between a human and orc, and that same human and orc being beaten by a single pandaren monk, Blizzard has once again created an enjoyable three-minute featurette. It kind of makes me wish WoW was a third-person action game, rather than an MMO.

Alongside this cinematic come new screenshots, all of which you can see below, and a mounting sense of anticipation for those who still enjoy adventuring in Azeroth. And, for those that complain that the game hasn’t been good since the vanilla days, but still stick around to play it, a huge inward sigh as they realize that they’re about to fork over more money for a game that they spend all of their time complaining about.

If you’re still on the fence, you can check out the different editions of the expansion you can grab, to see if there’s anything that catches your interest. For the rest of us, we’ll be diving back into Azeroth on September 25th. Personally, I just want to try out the new pet battle system. Gotta catch ‘em all, right?