The Arc of Shadowlands

The testing phase of a new expansion is always an interesting one in terms of lore.

The release of an expansion is always going to mean the biggest lore dump, the biggest addition of content. And yet, it's the beginning.

Almost every story is most interesting when it begins, because it's nothing but potential, and we can fill in what will come next with our imaginations.

That being said, the conclusion is not always obvious from the outset. While the first three expansions were built around a build up to a confrontation with its Big Bad (BC having to add on Sunwell Plateau after releasing Black Temple too early,) Mists of Pandaria began with Alliance/Horde combat spilling out onto this newly discovered land. Still, Blizzard told us before Mists released that, ultimately, Garrosh would be its final boss, and the expansion would conclude in Orgrimmar. But expansions that followed were a lot more coy. Warlords was set up to all be about the Iron Horde, only for us to instead find ourselves fighting the Burning Legion. Legion, admittedly, by its name, sort of had to have us go and fight the Burning Legion on its home turf, but the actual arrival on Argus and the existence of the Titan Argus were both fairly surprising, even after the expansion launched. BFA, while steeped in Old God lore, nevertheless seemed to be focusing primarily on the Alliance/Horde conflict before N'zoth became the focus of the expansion.

So, how do things begin in Shadowlands?

Things kick off when Sylvanas travels to Icecrown Citadel. She fights Bolvar, seemingly wiping out his most elite Scourge forces with ease (it literally happens during a title card) and then, while Bolvar puts up a good fight, she manages to best him thanks to the powers granted to her by the Jailer.

Though she, for a moment, seems as if she's going to claim the Helm of Domination for herself, she instead tears the artifact helmet apart. Whatever power was bound up in that helmet is released, and the destruction tears a rift between our reality and the Shadowlands.

I'm not in the Alpha, so I'm working from datamined stuff and impressions from those who have been able to play, as well as what Blizzard has told us.

To start, we're going to be dealing with five realms of the Shadowlands as well as its central city of Oribos. It appears we'll be finding corrupted figures in each of its covenants who are working for the Jailer (though I'm a little unclear on what exactly is going on with the Forsworn in Bastion - it's possible they're still good, but not as into the idea of abandoning their old identities to become Kyrians.)

Thus, it seems like the first major plotline is going to involve us going from realm to realm and defeating the various allies of the Jailer.

We know of the first raid, Castle Nathria, which will be in Revendreth, and is billed as a gothic vampire castle - basically Dracula's Castle (or Castle Ravenloft for you D&D fans.) Still, this is likely to be the Mogu'shan Vaults/Highmaul/Emerald Nightmare/Uldir equivalent raid - the starter, intro-raid that will, before long, be remembered as a quickie intro.

There are models for "Maw Raid" armor, though it's unclear if there's a raid set in the Maw coming so soon or if that will be stuff we earn in Torghast.

Blizzard claims they're being more forthright with the big bad of the expansion, which suggests that the Jailer will really be the final boss. That still leaves some questions: for example, who is the Jailer, and also, what role does Sylvanas play in all of this? (On the former, my current bet is that he's a dead Titan, possibly Telogrus of Telogrus Rift fame.)

In other expansions, we've often gotten new zones as patches have gone on. Legion gave us... well, the Broken Shore actually existed prior to 7.2, but it got actual content there with the patch, and then we got the three-zone world of Argus in 7.3. BFA's 8.2 gave us Mechagon and Nazjatar, and then 8.3 gave us new reasons to go to Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Blizzard has been very consistent in saying that there are many more worlds of the Shadowlands than the five we're visiting in 8.0. (Indeed, the Other Side dungeon seems to be another one, and I'd guess that Helheim and possibly Thros are also other Shadowlands realms.) So they have a lot of license to add new zones.

It seems to me that, as things stand now, we can predict that the Jailer will be the final boss of the expansion, likely with a raid in either the Maw or Oribos as the final one (the notion that the Arbiter is actually the villain has also crossed my mind, in which case a final raid in Oribos makes a lot of sense.)

If we assume there will be four raids, with maybe a fifth mini-raid (like we've had in Legion and BFA) we can place Castle Nathria in that first spot and the final raid... at the end.

In fact, let's imagine the Maw raid is actually the first "tier" raid, like Nighthold or Dazar'alor, and the Oribos raid will actually be the last one. That just leaves one more raid to fill in.

I'm getting very speculative here, but let's project the following:

Sylvanas has been working with the Jailer, but in fact, she's been double-crossing him at the behest of the Arbiter. So we go do Castle Nathria and take down... spoiler guy. Then, 9.1, we do a raid in the Maw, fighting the Jailer. In our victory, the Jailer reveals to us that, while he did have Sylvanas break open the Shadowlands, the actual anima drought isn't his doing, nor is the damnation of all souls to the Maw - its actually the Arbiter (after all, she's the one who determines where souls go, so she would be the obvious person to be behind this.) Perhaps we then fight an Arbiter-empowered Sylvanas in 9.2 somewhere else in the Shadowlands (or possibly even back on the material plane - maybe in a reclaimed Undercity?) And then, with all the truth laid bare, the final fight is against the Arbiter in a raid in Oribos - we go from spooky gothic castle to spooky death-metal raid to... the 9.2 one... and then the final fight is in a bright and heavenly Oribos raid.

It'll be a long time before we actually know all this, and having the questing experience of the expansion in hand will make it a lot easier to determine how likely all of this is.

If they stick with BFA's storytelling structure, there should still be plenty of story to play through even at the level cap and past the first patch.