Blizzard Announced Official Shadowlands Release Date

The delay of World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, Shadowlands, has been on the mind of most players for a variety of reasons. The announcement of the delay roughly a month from launch, the restructuring of the leveling system, and the addition of four new factions with their own concerns outside of the wars of the living. The delay was met was a surprising amount of positive feedback. Players knew it was going to be a big expansion and they wanted to make sure it was going to be done right. If that meant they had to wait for a little longer then most of us were willing to bite the bullet if that meant we were going to get a higher quality of content. The good news is we have a new official release date now, Shadowlands now planning on coming out on November 23, 2020.  We hope to have level 60 WoW accounts forsale within a few days of the launch.

            Though, it isn’t a stretch to say that while people were willing to wait that they were happy about it. Shadowlands features tons of new content that many players are excited to check out for themselves, the hype from the lucky few in beta not helping the situation. The afterlife centered expansion certainly would have been perfect for people to celebrate their Halloween with, which is adding insult to injury. We do get some solace that our wait time isn’t very much longer, but this isn’t a surprise considering that the initial delay said that Shadowlands would be coming out later this year and their window was quickly shrinking.

            Some of you may have decided to cool their heels when it came to the Shadowlands hype train and we can’t blame you. Who wants to get themselves worked up for content when they don’t really know when it’s coming out. But now that we have another launch date we think its probably safe to let ourselves get excited again. And we have to admit, when it comes to Shadowlands there is a lot to be excited about.

            To start, the Shadowlands is getting 5 new zones for characters level 50 or above. While this is on the lower end number of new zones included in an expansion, veteran players know that it isn’t the number of zones that make an expansion but the content within those zones. One of the key reasons for the delay was to add new content to zones that players said were too empty. It’s pretty likely we are going to see some content-heavy zones to explore with Shadowlands and that is something we are very excited about.

            With the new territory comes a new hub city for player characters to shop, socialize, and strategize in, the beautiful city of the dead, Oribos. Oribos is a standard hub city that you see in WoW but will give access to all the new fun that the new fun content that Shadowlands has to offer so its a place you are probably going to want to get a feel for pretty quickly. This will also be the primary place where Anima will change hands, an expansion exclusive currency that is used in the land of the dead.

            The major selling point of the new expansion is the Covenants. These four groups are the factions that control the Shadowlands and the ones that you can choose to align yourself with to finish their specific story. This means that the campaign branches off in four different directions. The good news, for your story minded players, once you beat the first section before you split off based on your covenant, you don’t have to play it again for any subsequent characters, making it a touch easier to experience all the story content.

            The factions are all interesting and engaging in their own way. Not to mention they have a unique ability for each class, so we won’t be surprised if players want to explore the covenants multiple times over with a bunch of their characters. You have a choice between four distinct factions. The stalwart and righteous Kyrian, the dark and decadent Venthyr, the pensive shepherds that are the Night Fae, and the war-sworn Necrolords are the factions that control this land caught between life and death. And it is your power and loyalty they are competing for, and you who choose the price that will win you over.

            But what do these covenants have to offer you? We mentioned the class-exclusive abilities, but that is just one of the more controversial perks. You also get a faction exclusive ability on top of the class ability. Want more power for your character? Well, Shadowlands has it. This expansion also comes with Soul-Bind traits and bonuses to bring your character to a whole new tier. Each covenant also has faction exclusive armor sets on top of all of that. Do you want the standard expansion stock like new pets and mounts on top of all those nice perks? Shadowlands has got that for you too. All and all, these covenants have some pretty good reasons for us to feel hyped all over again.

            What we are really excited about, though, is the new dungeon. Torghast, Tower of the Damned. Each run in the dungeon will be randomized and unique with special buffs will be awarded to you for your success giving the whole dungeon a nice little rouge-like feel to it. The rewards promised are pretty tempting too, materials to craft legendary weapons and even more power and secret thing. Damn, do we love a mystery when it comes to risking our lives for a prize.

            This is the content that we have been waiting a whole extra month for. We definitely want it to be polished and playable from the get-go. Just because we as WoW players are accustomed to post-release updates and balancing doesn’t mean we are happy when it happens after we have already built our characters. We can only hope that this extra month means that we are going to see a more balanced game between the factions, but if not then at least there will be plenty of content to distract us.  With all these improvements, we strongly believe not many people will make the decision to sell their World of Warcraft account, at least not until they have beaten the expansion.