Shadowlands is the highest-stakes expansion WoW has ever had, which is impressive given that just two expansions ago we put an end to, or at least scattered, the Burning Legion. With every newly-dead person being sent to the torment of the Maw it's clear that we not only need to fix this issue but also figure out some way to get them all out - not to mention that we need to stop the people doing this.
In 9.1, we'll be exploring a new region that has been dragged into the Maw, along with a raid at the top of Torghast, where we'll confront Sylvanas and, one hopes, free Anduin from his dominated state where he has been forced, essentially, to become what it looks like the Jailer meant Arthas to be (while we're at it, can we find Arthas' soul?)
But there are a couple things to note here:
Despite this looking like the "big Maw raid," it's coming in only the 9.1 patch. While I don't know what the patch schedule is going to look like for Shadowlands, especially in this weird Covid time (I'm hoping we still get three major patches as usual, even if the last of them winds up coming a decent chunk into 2022,) it's notable that we're not going to be fighting the Jailer himself in this raid.
On top of this, Blizzard has come out and said that the end of this raid will have huge implications for the future of the WoW cosmos.
Which all comes around to make me think: Are we going to lose?
The Jailer's ultimate plans are not 100% clear, though it does seem that he wants to make Death, among the six Primal Forces, the triumphant one. While Death has generally been seen as an evil in its manifestations in Warcraft's past, we now know that the Scourge and necromancers are actually more representative of the Jailer specifically (borrowing some techniques and strategies from other Shadowlands regions) while there's plenty that's benevolent within the realm of Death. In order to do what he needs to do, though, the Jailer needs to reach the Arbiter at the top of Oribos and... kill her? Absorb her power? Something like that?
So, I had previously thought we might have a final raid in which we have to fight through and defeat the Jailer's assault on Oribos, fighting him up there and trying to prevent him from killing the Arbiter - maybe with the final fight ending as the Arbiter re-awakens and destroys the Jailer or something.
But... maybe I'm wrong?
There has been some datamined stuff that suggests our fight with Sylvanas is more far-reaching than just the top of Torghast.
There's a TV Tropes page for "You Can't Thwart Phase One," which makes a lot of sense for building a narrative. Essentially, in the early part or middle of a story, the villain has to be making progress toward their goal. The hero might score some early victory, maybe taking out a henchman, but usually the henchman or obstacle that the hero overcomes is a distraction from the larger issue. Indeed, the "victory" can often just be more about survival than triumph. But even if the hero makes a proactive strike against the villain, you can't have the villain's plan fail then and there, because then the story's over.
It's not always the case, of course. You can have a story in which the hero's early victories force the villains to change their plans. Legion, for example, has us first thwart Gul'dan from turning Illidan into a vessel for Sargeras, and then has us prevent Kil'jaeden from escaping to regroup, which forces Sargeras himself to attack Azeroth.
Still, I think that there's a good chance that this is where we're going with Shadowlands. What, then, happens if he does reach the Arbiter?
Well, the Shadowlands themselves are probably in for a lot of trouble. But there has been subtle hinting that the way that the Shadowlands are set up in the first place is kind of flawed. Maybe something better could be built from the wreckage?
The big question, though, is that if the Jailer succeeds, what does it mean for the rest of Shadowlands?
There has been some talk about some future "cosmic disco war" in which all the primal forces in the Warcraft Cosmos come into conflict. That feels like it could be its own expansion, or even several expansions. If that's the case, could Shadowlands be the first within that set? I'm inclined not to think that's how they're playing it, as I think Blizzard will generally try to change tone and scope with each expansion to keep us from getting bored - meaning I think that the next expansion is probably going to be something much more grounded and set on Azeroth (Dragon Isles, maybe?)
Still, the scope of this expansion, which is already massive, could get even bigger if the Jailer sits triumphant at the end of the 9.1 patch. Assuming we get the usual three major content patches, we'd have two more raids to go through. I think it's likely that we'll be taking the Jailer down by the end of this expansion (I think Blizzard explicitly said that they wanted to do an expansion where you knew who the final boss would be at the beginning when talking about Shadowlands). But if Sylvanas is handled in 9.1, I have genuinely no idea who the final boss of the middle raid will be (especially with Kel'thuzad also being handled in 9.1.)
I've been on a bit of a WoW break the past couple weeks - I think I got a little burned out, despite the fact that 9.0 is one of the best opening patches an expansion has had - I don't want to burn through my enthusiasm for the expansion entirely before 9.1 comes out.
It's a real shame that there's been such a delay, but then, this past year (and change) has been a once-in-a-century thing (at least I hope we don't get another pandemic like this for a hundred years - we'll see what climate change has to say about that) and I can't really blame anyone for running into difficulties keeping up with their usual schedule. I got my second vaccine shot a week ago, and so we seem to be approaching a light at the end of the tunnel, but of course, delays of content releases could also mean delays of future content releases. Frankly, I wouldn't be shocked if we just see the whole "roughly in fall in even-numbered years" release schedule for WoW expansions get shunted back a bit because of this.
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