THE LAUNCH OF A NEW WORLD OF WARCRAFT EXPANSION

A clean slate and a new adventure makes WoW exciting again.

- Steven Messner

As I am writing these words World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, its eighth expansion, is just a few hours from its official launch. I’ll soon get to embark on a whole new adventure to entirely new realms filled with entirely new enemies, characters to meet and bosses to grind for loot. It is, without a doubt, the most excited I’ve felt about World of Warcraft in a long time, and it’s a feeling that I’ve come to cherish over the 16 years I’ve been playing.

It’s easy to see why the launch of any new MMO expansion would be exciting, but there’s something extra special about World of Warcraft’s modern approach to it. Sure, there’s new zones and story quests to explore, but I’m far more enticed by Shadowlands’ new progression systems and endgame structure. A lot of MMO expansions go for the more is better approach –