World of Warcraft Shadowlands Expansion Release Date Finally Confirmed
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, the delayed expansion to the long-running MMORPG, will finally be released on November 23. Developer Blizzard Entertainment has continued to support the highly successful massively multiplayer online game since it first released back in 2004. It has been some time since the game's last expansion, Battle of Azeroth, which launched in August 2018.
Shadowlands has long been anticipated by World of Warcraft players, although the expansion's exact release date has been unknown. The expansion was originally slated for release on October 27, but Blizzard delayed its launch after negative feedback from a beta release. Players cited serious balance issues, among other problems, when they got their hands on the pre-release version of Shadowlands. With the newly announced release date fans can hopefully look forward to a higher-quality update than was reflected in the beta. Earlier this month, a pre-patch update went live in World of Warcraft, allowing players to become acclimated to several changes coming with Shadowlands such as level system changes and adjustments to character creation.
Today, Blizzard officially announced Shadowlands' new release date as November 23. The announcement came with heartfelt thanks to the WoW community for their patience and feedback during the expansion's delay. The post also revealed a pre-launch event which will take place on November 10, giving players a taste of the brand-new content. Shadowlands Season 1, and the expansion's first raid, have also been revealed to kick off on December 8. Finally, the announcement also came with a new trailer for Shadowlands which reveals a bit more about the expansion's story.
Shadowlands will be bringing a number of changes to World of Warcraft, which is always dangerous for such a long-running game. Possibly the biggest change coming with the new expansion is a level squish, which will reduce players' levels in order to fit onto a new level scale. The purpose of the squish is to reduce overall levels and make the leveling process a little smoother, but it shouldn't affect player progression or gameplay beyond that. Rumors are also circling that Shadowlands may be the final expansion for the long-running MMO, although Blizzard has not commented on this possibility.
Blizzard made the right decision delaying the release of Shadowlands until it was in a more acceptable state of quality. World of Warcraft fans are loyal and patient, and so the one-month delay will likely be appreciated by most of the game's player base. However, now that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands' release is only a month away, players will be eagerly looking forward to some brand new Warcraft content.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will launch on November 23.
Source: Blizzard