We already know a lot about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands, but one important piece of information has been missing: the release date. Now, thanks to Blizzard’s Gamescom announcement, we finally know that we can enter the strange and intriguing Shadowlands on October 27, 2020.
At Gamescom, Blizzard premiered Afterlives Bastion, the first in a series of four animated shorts about the new covenants in World of Warcraft Shadowlands before revealing the release date alongside a short and sweet trailer showing off the best of the upcoming expansion. Here’s the animated short:
Shadowlands officially entered beta back in July and has been described as fully complete, merely lacking polish, and requiring the ironing out of a few bugs. Players were able to level to 60 and test endgame content, alongside other new features being brought to Azeroth. The new level cap is a result of the pack’s much-needed level squish, which will see the current cap reduced from 120 to 50.
One of the most anticipated and major new features of the pack are Covenants. This end game content allows you to join one of four Covenants you’ll encounter as you journey through the expansion’s narrative. Once the choice is made you can work to unlock new abilities and customizable talent trees after establishing your Sanctum.
There will be specific improvements relating to your character and spec with the system, which will function similarly to the class halls in Legion. Each Covenant will also have an Adventure map, similar to the mission table. This will even allow for offline progress and will be supported via the mobile app, meaning you can track quest progress on the go.
Legendary Runecrafting is another major new feature and will allow players more control over the items they obtain. Earning currency will allow you to have a legendary slot of your choice, giving access to many bonuses influenced by previous items.
The information so far leads us to believe that the pack is pulling out some legacy features and making improvements to them in order to provide players with more character customization. Now we won’t have long to wait to see how this pans out since we’re able to take to the Shadowlands very soon.
