Still due in ‘2020’
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is bringing some huge changes to WoW as a whole, and Blizzard is starting to finally give us more info following its BlizzCon data dump last November.
Amid the rollout of the alpha for select players, the WoW team is starting to further hash out some of the details of the expansion, including facets like the covenant system, class updates, a few new zones, the starting experience and the Torghast dungeon.
Here are the big beats. Bastion is a new beautifully blue zone that will allow you to attune further with the Kyrian covenant, which will grant you the ability to summon a steward that can restore health and cure status effects. Every class in the game is getting huge alterations, and some are even getting returning abilities of old to allow the class fantasy to align more with the developer’s original intentions.
Upon starting Shadowlands, players can also experience an “introductory excursion” culminating in a mini-dungeon for 1-5 players (these sorts of pointed storylines are great for getting new players interested). This excursion will also serve as a tutorial of sorts for new players, who may or may not have boosted their way to the expansion. So a proper new player experience (NPE): brilliant. Naturally, returning players can opt out of it and kick off a new character without having to roll through it every time (and, mind, “warp” into an expansion of your choice starting at level 10 to facilitate the new “level anywhere” system).
As a reminder, Shadowlands still doesn’t have a firm release date outside of its 2020 window. A smart move by Blizzard, as the pandemic situation may force them to pivot its release: just as Final Fantasy XIV has pivoted with its upcoming patch.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands News Round-Up [Battle.net]
