Originally scheduled for early June, Blizzard decided not to distract from the important issues we, as a country, were discussing at the time (not to say that that discussion has ended) and delayed a big infodump.
Well, that's coming tomorrow morning. They apparently have new information to reveal about Shadowlands.
What might be a big enough thing to make it a whole livestream? There are, I'd think, a couple possibilities, and we're likely to get some or all of them.
Expansion Release Date: This one's a pretty good bet. We're now in the second half of 2020 (sigh) and we're expecting the release of Shadowlands some time in the fall, which tends to be when WoW expansions drop. I don't know to what extent working from home has slowed progress on the expansion, but from the progress of the Alpha, I'd bet we're actually not that far off the schedule, so I'm throwing my dart at some time in November.
Beta Launch Date: While the Alpha has been going for quite some time, limited primarily to WoW community leaders and, I'd guess, friends and family as usual. The Beta, while not open, is thrown open to a much larger range of folks (I was in the Mists, Warlords, and BFA betas... superstitiously I think if I don't get into the Shadowlands one it'll mean good things for the expansion) and tends to come only when the expansion has progressed to a more complete state.
Showing Off More Stuff: There are a few major features for the 9.0 launch that remain to be added to the test, including, crucially, the Soulbind system - something that could go either the way of artifact weapons (good, except when they brought in the Netherlight Crucible) or azerite (bad from the get-go and never really got good). They have also not yet opened up the Maw except for the level 50 intro, so we have yet to see how that will work as outdoor content. Opening that up and giving us a big preview would be highly welcome.
A New Cinematic: BFA gave us a wonderful series of full-blown cinematics following Saurfang's journey to redemption, and while I don't know that Blizzard will just be repeating itself, I wouldn't be shocked if we had a similar series, perhaps focused on Bolvar or Sylvanas, each of whom are clearly going to be playing a major role in the expansion. I'd also hazard to guess that we'll get some new hybrid "still/animation" works like Lords of War, Harbingers, and Warbringers (also the... tests of Shaohao? That's when they first did that, I think).
Major Content Announcements: We know that there will be the five zones and a Castle Nathria raid in Revendreth, but given that that will be the Uldir/Emerald Nightmare/etc. of the expansion, I'm wondering if we'll also get a sense of what the first "tier" raid will be. And, hey, if it's going to be a "tier" raid, might we actually get class-based tier sets again? That's something that was sorely missed in BFA, and was always a great motivator to head into the raids to pick up full sets for the very important purpose of transmog.
Story Updates: BFA was heavy on faction politics, and while I think this expansion is set up to allow us to focus more on the figures we meet in the Shadowlands, every expansion has involved some stuff happening back home (well, maybe not Warlords). Already, I think there are hints that we'll be getting some more internal tension in the Alliance (finally!) but I suspect we might also get a run-down on how the expansion gets started and who is going to be playing a big role within it beyond the obvious Sylvanas and Bolvar.
In-Depth Systems Previews: Letting players understand the systems you're implementing in an expansion is a pretty important element in communication for the game. While I'm hoping Covenants and Soulbinds won't be the convoluted mess that was Azerite Armor (and I'm also thinking that, as cool as artifact weapons were, maybe we can cool it on this sort of thing and go back to gear as the main way you empower yourself?) it'll certainly help if they give us the total rundown. Clearly, things may have changed internally while they've been working on the expansion, and so some things we might think we understand might seem very different in tomorrow's announcement.
So those are my general thoughts. I'm avoiding any really specific predictions (Murlocs as an allied race. Make it happen, Blizzard!) but hey, it'll all be on the table tomorrow morning.
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