#shadowlands beta

The basic gist of Shadowlands is that you, the hero of Azeroth (or champion of Azeroth, if you’re talking to Magni), have to go to the afterlife lands to fix what Sylvanas did in the cinematic. I am super unclear on what specifically she did besides opening a portal to hell (I mean, haven’t we all), but you have to fix it or else everything you know and love will be destroyed. For some reason. While you’re there, you also have to rescue the handful of Big Name NPCs who got themselves kidnapped by a bunch of flying things during the pre-expansion event. 

Which is your set up. The story overall brings you to the four afterlife realms (no idea if these are the only ones or if there are more out there that just. Don’t matter?), which are having problems of their own, mostly stemming from a drought of anima, which is life essence, basically. And along the way, you bump into a fair few old friends (not as many as I expected! The cameos in this particular expansion are done with a light hand and come up only when it makes sense, and every one made me gasp in delight) and learn about how all of this is playing into something far bigger and worse than was initially apparent. 

And honestly, it really, REALLY works. Unlike in recent expansions, where you could choose to level in whichever of the new zones you wanted in whichever order you wanted, Shadowlands brings back an order to things, but it’s an order that comes about organically and that I enjoyed, at least on this playthrough (we’ll see how I feel after doing it for six sprillion alts). The leveling pace allows you to hit max level easily by just doing quests for the main storyline, though you do have the frequent opportunity to go off and do some sidequests if you want. 

The stories for the individual zones follow a fairly predictable but not necessarily bad pattern. You know that so-and-so is wrong for doing such-and-such, but it still feels really good to see them get their comeuppance (or not! We need some stories for the next couple of patches, after all). You get invested, which is typical for recent expansions, at least when it comes to the individual leveling zones. What’s less typical is both (a) having an overarching story that connects those zones so well; and (b) having an overarching story that you actually CARE ABOUT.

Which Shadowlands does have. And it’s really weird. I’m not used to that being the case with WoW! It’s the kind of storyline that I think the team wanted to create with Cata, but didn’t have the experience and skill and time to manage (I still say that Cata was a weak expansion because they tried to do TOO much, between new races, high level content, and revamping the entire old world); the closest we’ve come recently was with Legion, but even that didn’t manage to succeed quite as well as Shadowlands has so far.

This all sounds like really high praise. I’m still quite aware that it’s a WoW expansion, so the writing isn’t like. Pulitzer worthy. The stories remained somewhat predictable, and there’s a certain clunkiness that comes from having to make the player character the ~important special hero~ while also doing that for everyone else in the world; and from having to excuse things because of mechanics (kind of like demons being allowed in Stormwind). 

BUT. It’s miles even the best writing of BFA. 

The aesthetics are, of course, fantastic. Say what you will about WoW’s stories and writing, but the art department always shows up to work (along with the music department, hot damn). For each of the four afterlife realms, the aesthetic boils down to “[regular Azeroth thing] but MORE.” Paladins but MORE. Druids but MORE. Scourge but WAY MORE. The zones are all beautiful but also unsettling, giving the impression that no, you’re not supposed to be here, and maybe you should finish your business before you can’t leave.

I also appreciated the way this expansion introduces new gameplay features. In the 50-60 leveling, you’re introduced to things like Torghast and covenant abilities organically through your questing. In the new starting experience (which is optional if you already play WoW), you’re given organic and easy-to-follow instructions for everything, from where to place your hands and how to move your character to how to queue for dungeons and select a specialization. And again, it’s optional, so if you’re not new to the game and don’t want to bother, you can do the old starting experiences as relevant to your race and then continue as you please, though I do think everyone should do the new experience once, if only to get the new gear looks.