DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

The questing is tedious, but WORLD OF WARCRAFT: SHADOWLANDS is another great WoW expansion.

- Steven Messner

Shadowlands is one of World of Warcraft’s most ambitious expansions yet. There are times where I feel a little overwhelmed by all of its complex progression systems. When I’m not chipping away at expanding my Covenant’s Sanctum, I’m exploring its dark and dangerous new endgame zone or climbing the endless floors of Torghast. And then there’s the familiar grind of world quests, dungeons, and chasing down hidden treasures like new mounts.

It’s a lot to stay on top of, and at times a little too familiar, but much of Shadowlands’ endgame is varied and inventive enough to keep things fun. It might not win over jaded players who drifted away over the years, but Shadowlands is the best World of Warcraft has been in a long while.

The new expansion makes some huge improvements over the previous pack, Battle for Azeroth. There’s no more infinite grind to breathlessly chase. There’s no opaque armor system like Azerite Armor to suck the joy out of getting that coveted loot drop from a dungeon boss. And, best of all, a lot of randomness has been dialled back in favor of player choice. Instead of spending weeks praying for a specific, all-powerful Legendary item to drop, only to get one that’s useless to me, I can farm the materials for the one I want, and build it myself. It’s empowering to be the one calling the shots instead of feeling beholden to the fickle gods of randomness.