Shadowlands Pre-Patch Release Date - October 13, Shadowlands Launch Delayed

Update: Shadowlands launch has been postponed from October 26 to later this year!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Beyond Azeroth’s shattered sky, a realm of infinite afterlives awaits: the Shadowlands, where mortal souls go to reckon with their pasts, discover new purpose . . . or suffer an eternity of torment. Seize your destiny beginning October 26.

Upon entering the Shadowlands, Azeroth’s champions will encounter an otherworld in disarray. Virtuous souls are being wrongfully cast into the eternal darkness of the Maw, while the Covenants—powerful factions who hold dominion over the afterlife’s disparate realms—face ruin and strife as the flow of the Shadowlands’ essential anima mysteriously dwindles. As an ancient, long-bound evil gathers the strength to break its chains, players must carve their path through the uncharted reaches of the beyond, forge a pact with the Covenant that most aligns with their own principles and purpose—and ultimately restore balance to the hereafter.

Join the Global Launch

World of Warcraft’s next expansion will launch in the Americas, Europe, Taiwan, Korea, and Australia/New Zealand at the same time. Wherever you live and whatever path you choose to take, you can be part of one global adventure beyond the shattered sky.

Check the details below for the exact time you can begin playing and begin your journey into the Shadowlands.

  • Americas (PDT) - 4:00p.m. - October 26*
  • Europe (CET) - 12:00a.m. - October 27
  • Taiwan (CST) - 7:00a.m. - October 27
  • Korea (KST) - 8:00a.m. - October 27
  • ANZ (AEST) - 10:00a.m. - October 27
  • UTC - 11:00 p.m. - October 26


Pre-Purchase Now

Shadowlands is now available for purchase in three digital editions: Base, Heroic, and Epic.

Base edition Contents

  • The complete Shadowlands experience.

Heroic Edition Contents

  • The complete Shadowlands experience.
  • Shadowlands-level character boost, available on pre-purchase.
  • Ensorcelled Everwyrm Mount, which grants access to a questline that awards the Vestments of the Eternal Traveler transmogrification set.

Epic Edition Contents

  • All content from the Heroic Edition
  • Anima Wyrmling pet
  • Wraithchill cosmetic weapon effect
  • Eternal Traveler’s Hearthstone
  • 30 Days of game time

All bonuses from the Heroic and Epic Editions are unlocked immediately upon pre-purchase.

Begin your path into World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion by pre-purchasing Shadowlands now! For more information on World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, visit the official site.

*To align with other regions, the Americas will launch slightly ahead of October 27 in local time.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Shadowlands Launches October 26 started by Lumy View original post
Comments 152 Comments
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    I just got an e-mail from the place where I've pre-ordered the physical CE, and they said the release-date for the item is on September 13... Does that mean pre-patch a week later perhaps? Or on the 13th?

    Edit: Nevermind, they got back to me 1 hour later with a revised date again, now it says October 13. Guess that makes more sense anyway. <.<
  1. Dracullus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Queen of Hamsters View Post
    I just got an e-mail from the place where I've pre-ordered the physical CE, and they said the release-date for the item is on September 13... Does that mean pre-patch a week later perhaps? Or on the 13th?
    September 15th is possibility since last cloak upgrade is week earlier. Imo 6 weeks pre-patch would be mistake - it's no Legion pre-patch, content is too weak - but I could see Blizzard doing 3 weeks of leveling revamp + 3 weeks Scourge invasion.

    Btw, that would also mean that despite COVID SL will have ZERO delay (already looks like it's 2 weeks delay at most, cause first possible pre-patch date known from January is September 15th, add 4 weeks - minimum pre-patch lenght - and we have October 13th).
  1. Cosmic Janitor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Aggrophobic View Post
    I really doubt it's that far ahead.
    Not to mention it is an entirely pointless statement, as every time a dev runs a build for debugging it most likely has a new build number. If 20 people work on it they could be 100 builds ahead and it wouldn't mean anything in regards to actual difference to the current beta build. The reality is simply that if you have an internal build that is that far ahead all of the time spend testing is practically wasted anyway (on both sides, as sifting through the bug reports that no longer apply is wasting dev time as well), so the chances of it being the case are rather slim - at least I hope so for their sake.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dracullus View Post
    September 15th is possibility since last cloak upgrade is week earlier. Imo 6 weeks pre-patch would be mistake - it's no Legion pre-patch, content is too weak - but I could see Blizzard doing 3 weeks of leveling revamp + 3 weeks Scourge invasion.

    Btw, that would also mean that despite COVID SL will have ZERO delay (already looks like it's 2 weeks delay at most, cause first possible pre-patch date known from January is September 15th, add 4 weeks - minimum pre-patch lenght - and we have October 13th).
    Yeah, seems it was an error on the retailer's end, they revised it to say October 13 instead... Oh well, pre-patch should be coming in September either way. ^_^
  1. Crillam's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrLachyG View Post
    Pretty sure Legion launch was around midday for EU.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Legion launch heavily favoured those outside the US. In the US it launched about 2am West Coast and 5am East Coast

    - - - Updated - - -



    I'm not convinced of a September prepatch release. reason being is not only do we max out our cloak on Sept 8 but also the corruption vendor cycle starts on September 8 and finishes on October 6.
    Nope, Legion was 12AM in EU. I remember it and just to be sure I did go back and check. However back then it wasn't global release time. It was still on the same date for everyone so US did also have a 12am-3am launch
  1. Jotunhammer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrLachyG View Post
    Pretty sure Legion launch was around midday for EU.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Legion launch heavily favoured those outside the US. In the US it launched about 2am West Coast and 5am East Coast
    And BFA launched at what time? Oh yeah, midnight EU time and prime game time US time, so whats your point?
    It USE to be that we got the launch ahead of time because US market got the patches ahead of time, nowadays we suppose to
    get the launch same time, except we get it at midnight, why not put it at midnight US time and morning in EU....
  1. keelr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Goat7 View Post
    They couldn't get WC3 Reforged by the release date they set, they had to push it back and it still was the worst release in the history of games.
    It was the worst release of Blizzard but of all time? Definitely not.
  1. Twdft's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurg View Post
    and BfA is simply bad all over it.
    I wish people would stop with the hyperbole. Yes BfA had problems but "simply bad all over" wtf are you talking about? It's still a solid game.
  1. Nuciek's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Twdft View Post
    I wish people would stop with the hyperbole. Yes BfA had problems but "simply bad all over" wtf are you talking about? It's still a solid game.
    BfA is imo one of the worst expansions when it comes to the gameplay and fun. Of course it has it's good sides but it's just bad in general.
  1. Gurg's Avatar
    BfA will always be a "solid game" as part of WoW which is live for more than a decade and a half.

    As lore and visually it is beautiful expansion, it really is, but gameplay vise it is bad.
    When they showed off Azerite armor as a concept in BfA reveal it looked like a fun concept, but as soon as alpha/beta landed it was obvious that its not only bad system but also extremely limited. There was soooo many feedback for it and they.. pretty much only added option to respec it.

    Look at it this way.

    • Grind for neck stats and levels.
    • Grind for AZ gear for specific combination of traits.
    • Grind for essences.
    • Grind for cloak.
    • Grind for corruption.
    • Grind islands, warfronts, assaults and horrific visions.

    And thats reputation and non-azerite gear grind excluded as i'we counted them as "along the way", stuff that come on their own.
    That much of a grind is not fun. No matter how you looked at it. Dont get me wrong, i really dont mind grind to some extend, but this much grind is not fun, at least not for me.

    I left this out my personal opinion regarding corruption.
    Im also not enjoying corruption gameplay that we currently have, to me it feels like my character is just walking around and fishing for corruption proc to wipe the screen. To some that might be fun, but personally for me it isnt
  1. cface's Avatar
    If you buy this shit and play it on release, you don't even deserve to whine about an unfinished product when this is how blizz seems to operate by now. Why release a month or two later when they can simply extend their testing while you are paying for it?
    9.1.5 is where I suspect testing for covenant and torghast (balance/bugs) will be polished enough to be a worthwhile experience. Also at this point you can steer away from specs-classes that blizzard don't know what to do with for this expansion.
  1. KainneAbsolute's Avatar
    They should make all corruptions available at the vendor

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