After a year and six months, I can finally mark Shadowlands as complete!
Shadowlands is a bold step into unfamiliar territory for Blizzard. Well-established aesthetics that the company has cultivated for years aren't wholly present here. Bastion and Revendreth look unlike anything in the series thus far, and although Maldraxxus and Ardenweald boast familiar returns to plaguelands and elven iconography, the little shifts make them feel really distinct.
The introduction of Chromie Time and the level squish is the most proactive change the series has seen. You no longer have to go through 120 levels and jump between content from every expansion to catch up to the new stuff. Players can just go through a starting zone and get to the latest expansion with a single expansion of their choice. If it wasn’t for this change, I would have never come back to WoW. It gave me the opportunity to make a new character and play entirely through Legion (a beloved expansion I completely missed) before beginning Shadowlands, without having to trudge through all of the old content again. I’m still utilizing this feature today, jumping through Battle for Azeroth’s Horde and Alliance campaigns separately with new characters and tackling what I missed from Warlords of Draenor.
Additionally, Shadowlands does a great job making this expansion feel like a venture into a whole different plane. Blizzard's artists and environment designers knocked it out of the park here. Shadowlands is fuckin' gorgeous and if we were judging based on aesthetic alone, this expansion would be S-tier. More so than any other expansion, many corners of Shadowlands could be mistaken for a painting, sometimes hard to believe you’re even playing a video game. World of Warcraft has always been at the pinnacle of inspiration in art direction IMO (it’s what made me obsessed with environment and world design), and this whole experience reaffirms that.
Unfortunately, what Shadowlands gets wrong is obnoxious. Much of it exists as an unnecessary grind, making it clear that Blizzard hasn’t learned much after what happened with Battle for Azeroth. Renown, Anima, and Korthia’s Research all contribute towards a bland endgame grind that encourages progression through forcing the player to engage with daily and weekly quest rotations.
Similar to WoD, this is an expansion that suffered from long-periods of no content. Blizzard Entertainment offset this with some heavy grinds to create the illusion of progress, but most of the community was not fooled. Eight months of no new content and the main way a player could engage with content or improve themself was through world quests in one of the four zones tackling the daily/weekly systems and upgrading their armor with Anima. And when 9.1 came out, that gear was made redundant with a similar system, except they just replaced “Anima” with “Research” in the new zone, Korthia.
Korthia is a tiny little subset of The Maw where the players were meant to spend months grinding Research for upgraded equipment. The zone looks fine, it’s just massively disappointing after waiting so many months for something new, and then what we get is just a small but new portion of an already established area. What I do like about Korthia is the treasure hunting. It’s deemed “the city of secrets” and it lives up to that name, as my friend and I spent a lot of time digging through its corners and solving a few puzzles to find hidden items. Love that sort of stuff.
But then this Korthia gear was made redundant when 9.2 came out, which seems to suggest Blizzard realized these systems suck. No more Research-esque currency, although, once again, the new gear throughout Zereth Mortis completely makes the previous patches' stuff useless. Zereth Mortis is a good looking zone, though, and although I don’t like it more than any of the base areas, it’s still a compelling addition.
I’m not bothered by the awful grind when it’s limited to getting gear with higher item level. I already experienced the bulk of Shadowlands’ content, so that’s not going to sour my experience. But Shadowlands locked campaign content behind Renown, a reputation based currency that needed to be acquired by grinding weekly quests (and sometimes killing world bosses/beating raids/dungeons). Players cannot access the Covenant campaign and 9.1’s Chains of Domination campaign without having a certain amount of Renown. I refused to do Chains of Domination because I did not want to continue the Renown grind; I did it the first time (for the covenant campaign) and did not enjoy having to wait a week to begin the next story quest. Why the hell am I even paying $15 a month? This system is reminiscent of free-to-play energy mechanics that prevent you from playing too much at once. Heck that.
Blizzard can be as egregious as it wants with locking gear behind a dumb grind, but taking away my campaign and main questlines away from me? That’s like… the reason I play this game! To be fair, the Covenant campaign isn’t particularly compelling, although I actually liked Chains of Domination quite a bit. Once again, 9.2 solved this by awarding Renown at an alarming rate and allowed me to get to 80 Renown (the max) by finishing the Sepulcher of the First Ones campaign. I hope Blizzard has actually learned its lesson and reflects this appropriately in Dragonflight.
Shadowlands’ mainline narrative is largely underwhelming. Anduin’s big arc is barely given the spotlight, so many characters say NOTHING during key moments, and the Jailer is an underwhelming villain. I’m intrigued by the final twist but ultimately, he kinda just feels like a less menacing Sargeras. What did he want to accomplish by remaking reality again? Honestly not sure, maybe someone could explain it to me lol. Also don’t like the implications of Shadowlands’ lore. Feels like Zereth Mortis should’ve been more important, and the gravitas of what is coupled with all this crazy shit feels like it wasn’t given the weight it deserved. It’s such a monumental moment for Azeroth and its characters but it feels like Blizzard just wanted to rush through the story and then pretend it never happened. That’s not to say all elements of the story are bad: Uther’s arc is solid, and I like all the individual arcs of the zones. Seeing Ysera made me sob, and Tyrande got some cool moments, although I wish they did more with her. Wish the Night Warrior arc got more attention, still cool though! Sylvanas’ redemption is a total asspull, but they don’t do a terrible job towards the end wrapping it up. Pretty mixed feelings towards this.
Shadowlands’ dungeons are really solid, not much else to say otherwise. Had a lot of fun running through them and enjoyed how they utilized the separate aesthetics of each zone. Castle Nathria and Sanctum of Domination are both solid raids, but Sepulcher of the First Ones is only just OK. I expected a lot more from the dialogue, and wanted Jailer’s fight to be more elaborate, and also expected for Anduin’s battle to have more complexity? Honestly, it felt a bit easy overall. Planning to try this raid on Normal and see if it’s more complex. Big issue here is that the gear the player gets from Zereth Mortis is far stronger than the minimum ilevel for Sepulcher’s easiest difficulty (LFR) but significantly weaker than the minimum ilevel for Normal difficulty. Doesn’t seem properly balanced, and if I wanna do the normal version, I now have to do a lot of mythic dungeons to upgrade my armor. Actually don’t mind this though, Mythic dungeons are fun as hell. Just wish my initial LFR run was more challenging.
The highlight of Shadowlands as far as endgame content is Tazavesh, the game’s eight-boss mega-dungeon. That marketplace is ripe with creativity, and takes the player through so many unique and challenging ideas. Purchasing gizmos from shady merchants, playing in a jazz band for a group of outlaws, battling a massive loot dragon, and fighting a metal mailman delivering ticking bombs leads to non-stop wildness and I loved it; spent five hours trudging through this hard-as-nails Mythic dungeon with a really kind group and was the most fun I’ve had in Shadowlands.
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Overall, I absolutely adore Shadowlands’ base content, including its main questing zones, initial raid and all of its dungeons. They’re fantastic aesthetically and have interesting area-storylines. But the expansion is bogged down by an overly grindy endgame and some underwhelming patched content (Tazavesh is amazing, Sanctum of Domination is good, and Zereth Mortis is a solid zone tho), especially considering the less-than-ideal rate new stuff was released. The mainline narrative does not feel put together, and ultimately Blizzard failed to handle the scale of its implications properly.
Shadowlands is a good expansion IMO but Blizzard could learn a lot from the mistakes it made. Really looking forward to Dragonflight and hope the team learned some valuable lessons here.
Shadowlands is a bold step into unfamiliar territory for Blizzard. Well-established aesthetics that the company has cultivated for years aren't wholly present here. Bastion and Revendreth look unlike anything in the series thus far, and although Maldraxxus and Ardenweald boast familiar returns to plaguelands and elven iconography, the little shifts make them feel really distinct.
The introduction of Chromie Time and the level squish is the most proactive change the series has seen. You no longer have to go through 120 levels and jump between content from every expansion to catch up to the new stuff. Players can just go through a starting zone and get to the latest expansion with a single expansion of their choice. If it wasn’t for this change, I would have never come back to WoW. It gave me the opportunity to make a new character and play entirely through Legion (a beloved expansion I completely missed) before beginning Shadowlands, without having to trudge through all of the old content again. I’m still utilizing this feature today, jumping through Battle for Azeroth’s Horde and Alliance campaigns separately with new characters and tackling what I missed from Warlords of Draenor.
Additionally, Shadowlands does a great job making this expansion feel like a venture into a whole different plane. Blizzard's artists and environment designers knocked it out of the park here. Shadowlands is fuckin' gorgeous and if we were judging based on aesthetic alone, this expansion would be S-tier. More so than any other expansion, many corners of Shadowlands could be mistaken for a painting, sometimes hard to believe you’re even playing a video game. World of Warcraft has always been at the pinnacle of inspiration in art direction IMO (it’s what made me obsessed with environment and world design), and this whole experience reaffirms that.
Unfortunately, what Shadowlands gets wrong is obnoxious. Much of it exists as an unnecessary grind, making it clear that Blizzard hasn’t learned much after what happened with Battle for Azeroth. Renown, Anima, and Korthia’s Research all contribute towards a bland endgame grind that encourages progression through forcing the player to engage with daily and weekly quest rotations.
Similar to WoD, this is an expansion that suffered from long-periods of no content. Blizzard Entertainment offset this with some heavy grinds to create the illusion of progress, but most of the community was not fooled. Eight months of no new content and the main way a player could engage with content or improve themself was through world quests in one of the four zones tackling the daily/weekly systems and upgrading their armor with Anima. And when 9.1 came out, that gear was made redundant with a similar system, except they just replaced “Anima” with “Research” in the new zone, Korthia.
Korthia is a tiny little subset of The Maw where the players were meant to spend months grinding Research for upgraded equipment. The zone looks fine, it’s just massively disappointing after waiting so many months for something new, and then what we get is just a small but new portion of an already established area. What I do like about Korthia is the treasure hunting. It’s deemed “the city of secrets” and it lives up to that name, as my friend and I spent a lot of time digging through its corners and solving a few puzzles to find hidden items. Love that sort of stuff.
But then this Korthia gear was made redundant when 9.2 came out, which seems to suggest Blizzard realized these systems suck. No more Research-esque currency, although, once again, the new gear throughout Zereth Mortis completely makes the previous patches' stuff useless. Zereth Mortis is a good looking zone, though, and although I don’t like it more than any of the base areas, it’s still a compelling addition.
I’m not bothered by the awful grind when it’s limited to getting gear with higher item level. I already experienced the bulk of Shadowlands’ content, so that’s not going to sour my experience. But Shadowlands locked campaign content behind Renown, a reputation based currency that needed to be acquired by grinding weekly quests (and sometimes killing world bosses/beating raids/dungeons). Players cannot access the Covenant campaign and 9.1’s Chains of Domination campaign without having a certain amount of Renown. I refused to do Chains of Domination because I did not want to continue the Renown grind; I did it the first time (for the covenant campaign) and did not enjoy having to wait a week to begin the next story quest. Why the hell am I even paying $15 a month? This system is reminiscent of free-to-play energy mechanics that prevent you from playing too much at once. Heck that.
Blizzard can be as egregious as it wants with locking gear behind a dumb grind, but taking away my campaign and main questlines away from me? That’s like… the reason I play this game! To be fair, the Covenant campaign isn’t particularly compelling, although I actually liked Chains of Domination quite a bit. Once again, 9.2 solved this by awarding Renown at an alarming rate and allowed me to get to 80 Renown (the max) by finishing the Sepulcher of the First Ones campaign. I hope Blizzard has actually learned its lesson and reflects this appropriately in Dragonflight.
Shadowlands’ mainline narrative is largely underwhelming. Anduin’s big arc is barely given the spotlight, so many characters say NOTHING during key moments, and the Jailer is an underwhelming villain. I’m intrigued by the final twist but ultimately, he kinda just feels like a less menacing Sargeras. What did he want to accomplish by remaking reality again? Honestly not sure, maybe someone could explain it to me lol. Also don’t like the implications of Shadowlands’ lore. Feels like Zereth Mortis should’ve been more important, and the gravitas of what is coupled with all this crazy shit feels like it wasn’t given the weight it deserved. It’s such a monumental moment for Azeroth and its characters but it feels like Blizzard just wanted to rush through the story and then pretend it never happened. That’s not to say all elements of the story are bad: Uther’s arc is solid, and I like all the individual arcs of the zones. Seeing Ysera made me sob, and Tyrande got some cool moments, although I wish they did more with her. Wish the Night Warrior arc got more attention, still cool though! Sylvanas’ redemption is a total asspull, but they don’t do a terrible job towards the end wrapping it up. Pretty mixed feelings towards this.
Shadowlands’ dungeons are really solid, not much else to say otherwise. Had a lot of fun running through them and enjoyed how they utilized the separate aesthetics of each zone. Castle Nathria and Sanctum of Domination are both solid raids, but Sepulcher of the First Ones is only just OK. I expected a lot more from the dialogue, and wanted Jailer’s fight to be more elaborate, and also expected for Anduin’s battle to have more complexity? Honestly, it felt a bit easy overall. Planning to try this raid on Normal and see if it’s more complex. Big issue here is that the gear the player gets from Zereth Mortis is far stronger than the minimum ilevel for Sepulcher’s easiest difficulty (LFR) but significantly weaker than the minimum ilevel for Normal difficulty. Doesn’t seem properly balanced, and if I wanna do the normal version, I now have to do a lot of mythic dungeons to upgrade my armor. Actually don’t mind this though, Mythic dungeons are fun as hell. Just wish my initial LFR run was more challenging.
The highlight of Shadowlands as far as endgame content is Tazavesh, the game’s eight-boss mega-dungeon. That marketplace is ripe with creativity, and takes the player through so many unique and challenging ideas. Purchasing gizmos from shady merchants, playing in a jazz band for a group of outlaws, battling a massive loot dragon, and fighting a metal mailman delivering ticking bombs leads to non-stop wildness and I loved it; spent five hours trudging through this hard-as-nails Mythic dungeon with a really kind group and was the most fun I’ve had in Shadowlands.
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Overall, I absolutely adore Shadowlands’ base content, including its main questing zones, initial raid and all of its dungeons. They’re fantastic aesthetically and have interesting area-storylines. But the expansion is bogged down by an overly grindy endgame and some underwhelming patched content (Tazavesh is amazing, Sanctum of Domination is good, and Zereth Mortis is a solid zone tho), especially considering the less-than-ideal rate new stuff was released. The mainline narrative does not feel put together, and ultimately Blizzard failed to handle the scale of its implications properly.
Shadowlands is a good expansion IMO but Blizzard could learn a lot from the mistakes it made. Really looking forward to Dragonflight and hope the team learned some valuable lessons here.