

Shadowlands features five major zones - Bastion, Ardenweald, Revendreth, Maldraxxus, and the Maw. For players new to World of Warcraft, characters who finish the starting experience on Exile's Reach proceed to Battle for Azeroth content, while veteran players who create new characters can choose the expansion experience they wish to play through to level 50, at which point they proceed to the Shadowlands. In what Blizzard has called a " New Game+ experience", newly created characters have an updated starting experience on an island called "Exile's Reach", which introduces them to the game and its systems. Shadowlands involves a level reduction ("level squish") with player characters at level 120 (the level cap in Battle for Azeroth) reduced to level 50, with level 60 being the new level cap (as it had been in the original game). Main article: Gameplay of World of Warcraft A new raid, "The Sepulcher of the First Ones", concludes the story of Shadowlands by having the expansion's main antagonist, Zovaal the Jailer, as its final boss. On February 22, 2022, Eternity's End (Patch 9.2) was released, including a new zone known as Zereth Mortis, home of the originators of all reality. The patch went live on Jfor the US region, and on June 30 for EU. Chains of Domination also released a new raid called "Sanctum of Domination" which features iconic World of Warcraft character Sylvanas Windrunner as the final boss. A new location, Korthia, was added to the Shadowlands. On February 20, 2021, Chains of Domination (Patch 9.1) was announced. It features the game's first "level squish" and a completely overhauled leveling system, access to the Death Knight class for the races that did not previously have access to it, Covenants in the new zones, and new dungeons and raids. The expansion opens up the Shadowlands, the realm of the dead in Warcraft lore.

Originally scheduled for release on October 27, 2020, its release was delayed until November 23, the sixteenth anniversary of the release of the original game. It was announced and made available for preorder at BlizzCon on November 1, 2019. World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is the eighth expansion pack for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following Battle for Azeroth. Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
