World of Warcraft: Shadowlands New Release Date and Story Trailer

World of Warcraft’s upcoming Shadowlands expansion was originally supposed to launch a few days ago, but had to be delayed in order to give the team more time to polish things up. Now, the expansion can boast a new release date – November 23, 2020. With that, the expansion’s pre-launch event will be going live on November 10th and its first raid will be opening its doors on December 8th.

This announcement comes bundled with a new story trailer. Check it out:

Some additional information:

Greetings heroes of the Horde and the Alliance,

On behalf of the entire World of Warcraft team, I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank-you for your patience as we’ve continued to work on Shadowlands, and for all of the words of support after we made the tough decision to delay the game. Today, I’m happy to share that the expansion will be arriving November 23 at 3 p.m. PST (November 24 at 12 a.m. CET).

We’d like to thank everyone across the WoW community who helped us get where we are today, including players leveling up new characters in the Shadowlands pre-patch (and keeping Azeroth’s barbers extra busy), as well as all the beta testers who continue to provide us with invaluable feedback on the expansion.

Since we first told you about our decision to delay, we’ve used the time to further polish the expansion and shore up the endgame, including overhauling the combat and rewards in the Maw, and reworking the Covenant systems to make your choice more immediately impactful and have clearer long-term goals. Now the team is in a great position to get things the rest of the way to the finish line before November 23—and as always, we’re committed to working with you to improve the game for as long as you’re out there playing it.

Now that we have our launch date, we’re also excited to tell you that our pre-launch event will kick off November 10, so steel yourselves to take on a flood of the Scourge. In addition, we’ve set a December 8 date for the opening of our first raid, Castle Nathria—which takes players into the heart of Sire Denathrius’ lair in Revendreth—along with the start of Shadowlands Season 1.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone take their first steps into the Shadowlands and forging their destinies—but in the meantime, we’d like to show you just a little bit of what’s waiting for you beyond the veil.

See you on the other side,

-John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft

Then, you might also be interested in this recent ScreenRant article where the game’s lead narrative designer and Sylvanas enthusiast Steve Danuser briefly talks about the expansion and the long-lasting legacy of Arthas Menethil.