Alongside streaming media, games are another form of entertainment helping people stay occupied (and sane) through the pandemic. There's no bigger gaming time sink than playing an MMO, and Blizzard has just announced the delayed next expansion pack for World of Warcraft finally has a release date.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands pre-orders went live way back in November last year and the original launch date was set as Oct. 27. However, at the beginning of October, John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft announced the team needed more time "for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame." No new release date was set, but yesterday it was revealed. Shadowlands launches on Nov. 23.
The release date was announced in a tweet on the official World of Warcraft account, which you can read in full above. Before launch, there's a pre-launch event to look forward to on Nov. 10.
Shadowlands counts as the eigth expansion for WoW, and it brings some significant changes. There's a level reduction, which will see all player characters at level 120 reduced to level 50 and a new upper cap of 60 set. A "New Game+ experience" will occur on a new island called "Exile's Reach" to quickly get players up-to-speed on how the game works. There's also five new zones (Bastion, Ardenweald, Maldraxxus, Revendreth, and The Maw), a new player hub called Oribos, a new Covenant feature, with four Covenants to align yourself with, new character customization options, and an an infinite dungeon feature—"Torghast is an endlessly replayable, ever-changing dungeon that you can challenge alone or in a group. "
It's possible to pre-purchase the expansion and there's four editions to choose between (Base, Heroic, Epic, and Collector's) ranging in price from $39.99 right up to $79.99 for the Epic Edition. It seems as though the Collectros' Edition has sold out. After that, there's just the ongoing subscription of $14.99 a month to pay.