World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion led players beyond the veil of life and death. In Shadowlands, we embarked on a quest to find and sentence Sylvanas Windrunner for all the atrocities she committed during Battle for Azeroth, namely the burning of Teldrassil and the murder of Saurfang. The expansion was released on Nov. 23, 2020, and it will officially come to an end on Nov. 28 when Dragonflight launches worldwide.
Blizzard Entertainment originally imagined Shadowlands as the expansion that would finally explore the concepts of life and death that, in the history of WoW, only existed as two sides of the same coin. Although the previous expansions brought relevant lore characters back to life, during the expansion, we learned the line between life and death is rather vague. Inspired by the re-release of WoW Classic on Aug. 26, 2019, Shadowlands was supposed to be a huge step up from Battle for Azeroth’s borrowed power and bland class design that left all classes feeling like the iterations of the same class. But the expansion left a bitter taste in the mouth with tons of borrowed power systems like covenants, time-gated content with Renown, and a similar class design to BfA.
Now that we’ve defeated the final boss of the expansion, the infamous Jailer—who single-handedly wrecked over two decades of world and lore-building—let’s take a look at Shadowlands as a whole and see if it was just a mere time-killer until the next expansion or if it was a worthy time investment that will be remembered as an influential moment in WoW’s history.
Breathtaking visual design paired with first-class PvE content saved Shadowlands from certain doom
There’s no doubt that Shadowlands was, visually speaking, a stunning expansion that went above and beyond to drive forward WoW’s visual design and bring the theme of the afterlife to life. From unique zones that effortlessly resonate with vibrant colors, NPCs, and the sheer atmosphere of the place, to the soundtrack that perfectly aligns with the story, the design team did a brilliant job when trying to convey how the afterlife in WoW should look like. In fact, the visual design of the expansion might have kept players longer engrossed in the story and even enticed the community to make a return despite the longest content draughts we have ever seen in the history of WoW.
Another highlight of Shadowlands was, beyond every shadow of a doubt, PvE content. From Mythic+ dungeons to raids, every aspect of Shadowlands’ PvE was tested and polished to perfection so that once it went live, there was nothing else left but to sit back and enjoy the ride. On top of the immaculate raid and dungeon design, each season of Shadowlands had unique seasonal affixes like Prideful, Tormented, Encrypted, and Shrouded that added a touch exclusive to each season and made it more challenging for all Mythic+ fans. Similar to Mythic+ dungeons, all raid encounters were phenomenal and unique, especially since they were designed with World First raiders in mind.
Class tier sets left with BfA and they were replaced with Azerite Armor. From the moment the tier sets left the game, players were begging Blizzard to bring them back, but with no luck. With the release of Shadowlands Patch 9.2 on Feb. 22, 2022, the tier sets returned in their full glory. To help players get their hands on the tier set bonuses earlier than ever before, the devs introduced Creation Catalyst, which allowed you to transform basically any piece of gear from Mythic+ dungeons and raids into a tier set piece.
The final touch that helped Shadowlands remain a fond memory for everyone was season four. Released on Aug. 2, season four was a great time-killer for all competitive WoW players who sought a challenge while waiting for the release of Dragonflight. Other than mixing up the Mythic+ dungeon pool and introducing fresh rewards for Keystone Masters, season four introduced Fated raids that featured all three Shadowlands’ raids, but with a twist—the raids were of higher difficulty and therefore dropped higher item level loot in compensation.
Eight-month-long content draughts and content time-gating had players leaving the game left and right
Shadowlands will go down in WoW’s history as an expansion with the longest content draught that lasted a full 250 days. This content draught happened between patches 9.0 and 9.1. Although players were genuinely excited to see what else Blizzard had in store with the Chains of Domination, the patch did not bring much relevant content except a new zone called Korthia, Sanctum of Domination, and a couple of new mounts. Generally speaking, Shadowlands chronically lacked content and when Blizzard finally launched that much-needed content, players churned over the content in a couple of hours with nothing left to do. For that reason, we’ve seen players constantly leaving and coming back to the game.
The biggest frustration of Shadowlands, especially for players who joined mid-expansions, was time-gated systems. For example, in the final patch of the expansion, there was no way you found a raid or Mythic+ dungeon group if you didn’t have two Legendaries, maxed-out Renown, and soul binds. To get your hands on all of this, you had to spend hours and hours farming different dungeons, Torghast, and completing the main storyline on your alts. If you didn’t meet all of these requirements, you’d most likely get kicked out of Mythic+ dungeon run or raid. Unlike in other WoW expansions, where you could start doing the end-game content the moment you reached the max level, Shadowlands forced you to go through endless campaigns and storylines for the sake of you doing Blizzard’s content.
On a similar note, Blizzard promised Shadowlands would be an alt-friendly expansion that would allow you to breeze through content. If you played Shadowlands on at least one alt, you know the reality is far from this. In fact, you were forced to do the intro Maw scenario that would take approximately half an hour to complete on all of your alts until later in the expansion. On top of this, you had to complete the regular Shadowlands campaign as well as your covenant campaign that, in total, would take you anywhere from a couple of hours to several days to complete. But the time-gating didn’t stop there. You had to level up your Renown level-by-level so that you could play the game just like the rest of the community.
While looking at Shadowlands in retrospect, it’s impossible not to mention lore retcons. After spending over two decades building the intricate WoW lore that would send shivers down players’ spines, Blizzard introduced a villain who was suddenly behind every major event. The Jailer was involved in the creation of the Burning Legion, Lich King, and the Scourge. Not only did this make all the efforts narrative designers put into the game meaningless but it left the entire lore that began with the Warcraft franchise feeling incredibly dull and shallow. On top of all of this, Shadowlands basically ruined the epic character that was Sylvanas Windrunner by not explaining her motivations until the release of the Sylvanas book on March 29. This made her seem as if she was not really a clever character like we used to believe, completely blind to warning signs right in her face.
Final verdict: Shadowlands massacred WoW’s cannon lore and chronically lacked content that would redeem it
Although the introduction to Shadowlands left many speechless with Sylvannas tearing the infamous Helm of Domination to pieces and opening the sky above Icecrown Citadel, the reality which awaited us in the expansion was terribly dull. The start of the expansion was surprisingly pleasant, but as we got further into it, players’ frustration only grew largely because Blizzard started revealing its true intentions for the expansion.
The biggest flaw of this expansion was the chronic lack of content with players having to wait 250 days to see the first patch that didn’t even introduce a lot of fresh content. Another big problem the majority of the community had with Shadowlands was the lore retcons that rendered the Blizzard-made anthology of WoW lore useless and invalid. Although the player base tried to be understanding, it’s been really hard not to harshly judge the expansion considering there were only a couple of features to judge.
In conclusion, Shadowlands was a step up from BfA but it had an abundance of content Blizzard had no clue how to handle. The storyline progression was, on the one hand, logical and slow-paced. On the other hand, the storyline dumbed down our favorite characters like Bolvar Foredragon and Sylvanas Windrunner, essentially making them flat in their own story.
Since Shadowlands chronically lacked content to redeem Blizzard from massacring its own lore, there weren’t many excuses to play Shadowlands. In a nutshell, the expansion only had a couple of highlights, like the return of class tier sets and stunningly beautiful zones. But this was far from enough to redeem Blizzard from butchering the lore and ignoring the player base for months.
