World of Warcraft: Shadowlands – Release Date, Trailer, Beta, Gameplay, and News

The next World of Warcraft expansion is called World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

After the latest update to Battle of Azeroth saw the Horde and Alliance arrive at a temporary peace agreement, everything seemed to be relatively quiet in the world of Azeroth. However, the first trailer for Shadowlands shows Sylvannas Windrunner make her way to the frozen throne of the Lich King where Bolvar Fordragon sits. 

Somewhat shockingly, Sylvannas is able to defeat Bolvar Fordragon and seemingly assume his role as the Lich King (or Lich Queen). It doesn’t seem to be quite that simple, though, as Sylvannas destroys the ice crown and seemingly announces her intentions to use her new powers to get revenge on the Horde and Alliance. That seems to be roughly where the next expansion will start. 

Blizzard expanded on Shadowlands offerings somewhat by hinting at a few new mechanics. As you might imagine, this expansion will introduce new zones, loots, talents, and all of the usual content that we’ve come to associate with World of Warcraft expansions. However, Shadowlands has a few more tricks up its sleeves. For instance, it sounds like the expansion will focus on exploring the titular Shadowlands (which is basically the WoW afterlife). As part of this exploration, you will not only explore new zones and raids but will seemingly participate in a mysterious Covenant system that may replace or alter the game’s traditional faction system.

New information regarding World of Warcraft: Shadowlands mechanics will steadily become available as the game nears its full release, but thematically, this next expansion sounds like something that WoW fans have been begging for. We’ll see if the expansions actual content lives up to that hype, but between this, WoW Classic, and the recently announced BFA update, it’s feeling like a good time to be a World of Warcraft fan.

Here’s everything else you need to know about World of Warcraft: Shadowlands –

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Release Date

The beta for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will start next week according to an update from Blizzard. There’s no word on how many people will be invited to join the beta or what the criteria for a beta invite may be, but Blizzard has said that invites will start going out soon to those who have enabled the beta invite option on their Battle.net accounts.

Unfortunately, there is still no firm release date available for the full Shadowlands expansion, but it’s still expected to be released before the end of the year.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Gameplay

We got some hands-on time with Shadowlands, so be sure to check out our impressions of the upcoming expansion right here.

Also, be sure to read our extensive breakdown of Shadowlands‘ roguelike Torghast dungeon which may just change the way we view the legendary MMO.

Finally, be sure to read more about how Shadowlands will overhaul World of Warcraft‘s leveling system.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Trailer

You’ve got to see this incredible debut cinematic trailer for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.