It’s official, Blizzard Entertainment has decided to delay the launch of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands until late 2020.
A slight postponement will give the developers some more time to balance things, improve the general end-game experience, and fix any persisting bugs.
It will take a little bit more waiting to breach the realm of the dead.
Official blog post
Although World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was initially set to be launched on October 27, there’s a slight turn of events recently made by Blizzard Entertainment.
Shadowlands is the next big expansion in the long-running MMORPG. The expansion is now delayed until later in 2020, with no new release date announced at this time.
However, the pre-patch for the new expansion will be released on October 13th which includes features like the altered leveling system and new character customization options.
John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft, penned an official blog post confirming that Shadowlands will be delayed until later this year.
“Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share,”
“However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces, particularly those related to the endgame.”
With Blizzard’s strong commitment to quality, the dev team wants to ensure Shadowlands will be nothing short of special and can meet the WoW community satisfaction:
“We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential. n the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13th we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options.”
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will introduce some major shake-ups such as Covenants, a rogue-like dungeon called Torghast and endgame content in The Maw.
Fans and players alike seem to be supportive of the move made by Blizzard, if it means to ensure the best quality from Shadowlands:
“No one could have predicted the pandemic that we’d be in nor the complications that would ride along with it. Take your time and polish the game so SL can be an unforgettable journey.”
“Better to delay than release an incomplete game, thank you”
“Do whatever it needs to be done for the best quality gameplay/in-game experience, Kings & Queens”
“Truly, thank you for the transparency and for making this decision. This is a good call.”
Are you bummed by the delay of the highly-anticipated expansion? Let us know in the comments below!
