What's your favorite Shadowlands zone?

[God Save The King]

Ardenweald > Bastion >> Revendreth >> Maldraxxus

It's hard to rate Oribos/Maw on that scale. Oribos is a fine capital city, but it's clearly another player hub "city". I was hoping for a proper city like Boralus/Zandalar again.

Maw is meh. It's already kind of dull. It'd prefer if the content was weekly not daily. There's none of the great "challenge" promised and it's pretty annoying to fill up the bar to tier 5 everyday. Today I decided not to bother with it beyond the two dailies and only push when I'm in the mood. It's basically another Mechagon/Timeless Isle. Waste of time hunting for rares that die in seconds to fill some bar or finish some quest. I think a lot of the challenge is lost quickly once you get gear. I think day 1 it was somewhat difficult, but now that I'm in the 180s for ilvl it is easy.

I love my forest though. I would burn down the world to protect my Night Fae.

[callipygoustp]

Rev is pretty sweet.

[oldgeezer]

Still levelling here (just Revendreth to go). Surprisingly for me, I've enjoyed Maldraxxus the most so far. I like the art style (and transmogs) of Bastion, but the zone is almost too mellow, and I have a hard time staying awake in it. That said, I get an obvious Argus vibe from those two zones, a place I enjoyed. Ardenweald I'm not that excited about.

[Miseration]

I am in love with Sinfall and the music. guhhh

[jellmoo]

Ardenweald might be my favourite zone in the entire game. It's absolutely gorgeous. Plus, I loved the story that unfolded and how it darted between serious and light hearted.

Bastion was decent, but I felt as though it just didn't pull me in as much as it could have on first look.

I absolutely hated Maldraxxus, from a visual point of view, to a story one. It was a complete miss for me.

Revendreth had a ton of potential, but I wish that the aesthetic was a little more gothic and a little less desolate. Totally a personal thing though.

[qwerty123456]

Aesthetically Bastion then Ardenweld then Revendreth.

[Gestopft]

Ardenweald is absolutely gorgeous. Just stunning. I like all the other zones for different reasons, but Ardenweald is definitely amazing.

[DechCJC]

Honestly for me it has to be the best looking expansion they’ve ever done, and that’s a high praise considering the art team are always on the ball.

Revendreth is my favourite, I initially found bastion bland but upon revisiting it I’m simply in love with the place. Ardenweald is jaw droppingly beautiful, up there with bastion for me. Maldraxxus was the one zone that I felt ‘eh’ about going into shadowlands, but wow. For a zone that’s essentially a wasteland they did a damn good job, the whole right side of the map is fantastic and the rest is pretty damn good too. Dunno what caused it, but I flew into the zone a few days ago and there was this crazy cool looking ‘misty soul’ effect going on in the middle of the map and it just looked insane.

Before this expac there’s always been a few good zones and a few ‘eh’ ones, but this time around I genuinely love all of them.

For me:

Revendreth: 10/10
Everything else: 9.5/10

Genuinely don’t feel like I can narrow it down more.

Not gonna talk about the maw till I’ve seen all of it.

[Improtaight]

dunno about the other 3 but Bastion is so far down the bottom i don't want to list it at all
it felt like giant reuse of Mac'aree , different colors.
it was really really boring as well, i'm kinda sad they started with it

[Jessicka]

I loved Revendreth the moment I landed in it, and it only got better from there. The story is nice, the NPCs are very much likeable, and the aesthetic is everything.

It took a second play through of Ardenweald to appreciate it properly but I got to like it too, in spite of it feeling so similar to Hyjal and Val’Sharah. I guess it helps I liked those zones too. First time through I’d probably just been too disappointed in Bastion and Maldraxxus to appreciate it.

[Ragnarohk]

Visuals - Ardenweald

Story - Revendreth. That last part with the Mad Duke gave me Mad Mad vibes. But in general, well developed story

Music - Revendreth

I had to pick Ardenweald as a covenant (Druid). It would be a dishonour to the master class if I had picked something else.

Also, even if they reused models and art, Da Other Side is amazing.

[Tojara]

Revendreth simply because it reminds me of Castlevania lol.

Every single zone in Shadowlands is pretty amazing though to be honest.

[SirCowdog]

Anyone who honestly and non-trollingly voted for Bastion.....man. I hope for your sake you're basing that on appearance alone. Because the content and story of Bastion is about as fun as reading a dictionary backwards. Whoever at Blizzard made the decision to put that zone first in the questing experience needs to serious re-assess their reasoning, and whoever WROTE the story of that zone...oof. Please, go back to writing school and pay attention this time.

EDIT: Oh...and before anyone gets the genius idea to say something asinine like "Well maybe you should write it if you're so good." Just stop. You don't have to be a master chef to know when the toast is burnt.

[kranur]

Was skeptical about Revendreth but it's the coolest of them.

Did not like Ardenweald a bit. Best part of it was the cinematic from Legion. Too childlish for me .. like playing a Disney game.

Maldraxxus is nice too but feels weird. Necromancers and the like in charge of the miltary.

Bastion is just generic.

[Kumorii]

For me the zones got better and better in the order they appeared. Maldraxxus is better than bastion. Arden is better than mal. Revendreth is better than arden.

You can tell most time got put in the later two. With castle nathria being the first raid it makes sense it got the time. Felt like they didn't want to overwhelm players in bastion so it's very safe. But boring and bland.

[haiyken]

Bastion > Ardenweald > Maldraxxus > Revendreth > Maw

While I like most of the zones, I love Bastion. I like the colors and the ambiance, the weather effects are amazing and I like the openness when questing around. I chose the Kyrian for my Covenant because I could see myself hanging around the zone for years.

Ardenweald is also nice and enchanting, not much to say about it really. Fun to move around and explore. The story is cool.

Maldraxxus is a really cool but I find the overall design a bit heavy for my taste. I like all the undead stuff, playing a Forsaken myself, but it lack some variety in my opinion. The story was promising but ended on a sour note for me.

Revendreth is gorgeous but I find the layout really confusing to move around. I dislike that a lot of the terrain is broken apart, making it difficult to see where you could go. it's also filled with mobs everywhere I go and it's sometimes too much. It's probably the zone I spent the less time in. The vampire esthetic is sometimes too much for me.

The Maw is last on the list because it's a pain to move around (it's the point) and I find there is a lack of purpose on the architecture. We don't really know what all the places we explore are here for, compared to the other zones with more lore around it. There is also a sameness to it.

[Ninix]

I liked them all for different reasons.

- Ardenweald is aesthetically stunning. The atmosphere is truly magical there, they've done a wonderful job. However the storyline killed it for me. "I have major news from the highest entity in your plane. We are facing a catastrophe!
- OK boomer, the Queen will not see you. Please help me kill some spriggans, instead."
WTF?!

- I loved the concept of Maldraxxus but I think they made a poor job exploiting the idea of Houses' conflicts. I never really felt the constant perfume of violence and danger I was expecting from a "permanent war zone" like this.
Lady Vashj killed her part with her humour about our past confrontation.
The theme is kinda meh. Or at least already seen multiple tiles in wow history.

- Bastion is beautiful. The pastel colors make it very pleasing to discover.
However, I feel like without side questing, I could not understand anything about the back lore of the zone. I saw Uther popping out during a quest, hopefully I watched the pre-launch video from Blizzard, otherwise I would have been completely lost on what the hell he was doing here.

- Revendreth is very well managed. Not very easy to explore, but good spots, good quests, and the Castle areas are really impressive in design and visuals.
On the story side, it has the advantage of revealing the plot (even if we kinda saw it coling quite easily). So it naturally gives the zone a edge on the other zones for that.
Haven't explored everything yet, but where is my Garrosh?

- Maw is fun. The Soul River is a very cool idea.
Past the first gank by the Jailer Eye techniques when you don't understand WTH is happening to you,it's quite fun and the DS theme is pretty well packed up.
Bonus for the Torghast part. Really had fun in there.

Overall, I'd say
Rev >= Ardenweald >> Maw > Bastion > Maldraxxus.


Bonus : I know it could quickly fall under lazy fanservice from Blizzard, but I hope we will come across more past legends of Aeroth in the future than what we have right now through the pexing content.

[mrsohta]

I prefer colorful zones, dark zones always get me bored. Ardenweald is too busy and tight, I feel like quickly running my destination and be done with it. Also, the fairies are creepy to me for some reason. On the other hand, you can clearly see the open sky in Bastion. The fresh air, flowers mmh <3 I don't feel like I'm in a big dungeon there, I can enjoy walking around. They all have their beauties tho, I love them all. For example, Revendreth isn't my type but it has a good theme and lots of details everywhere. The worst would be Maldraxxus because... Green, slimes, mushrooms, stinky, boring... And it just doesn't feel fresh.

[Shedaar]

I went with Ardenweald even if I hate fairy-type stuff.
It's just glorious.
Winter Queen is savage AF calling Ysera a "pet" (which I found quite offensive, but it shows how Ysera, which is an Emerald Dragon Aspect for us is just a "pet" for WQ).
And the Zin'Azshari music moment in Hibern-something(?) Hollow brought so many memories, I didn't expect to hear it in the music there at all.
Love the little touches.
Hate Bastion tho - these purity cultists that have to take a bath every quest and self-doubting all the time are annoying.
And they seem to be these noble creatures that convert to darkness in the blink of an eye, which is my main issue also with the Naaru, which is why they mostly suck (apart from being flying chandeliers as ppl call them).

[Gamingsince1981]

Revendreth, it looks great the characters are great and its fun to explore.