The World Of Warcraft Shadowlands Expansion Enters Beta Next Week

Earlier today, Blizzard Entertainment held a World of Warcraft Twitch stream where Executive Producer John Hight announced their plans to start beta testing the upcoming Shadowlands expansion. He also showed off the Shadowlands collector’s edition box and contents which includes a Shadowlands artbook, mousepad, collector’s pins for each of the Covenants, and the official expansion soundtrack.

“You'll be experiencing more of Shadowlands very soon,” says Hight. “In fact, I'm pleased to announce that World of Warcraft Shadowlands will officially enter beta next week. Beta participants will be able to experience the max level challenges of the Maw, the most dangerous place in all the Shadowlands, and one of the most rewarding too.”

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas then took over the stream to talk about the upcoming beta starting with a quick look at some of the data they gathered during the alpha test. According to Hazzikostas, 817, 508 quests were completed over the past three months, 2,124 characters completed the Exile’s Reach new-player experience for the Alliance, 62,727 Torghast runs were made with over 11,218 falling victim to Tarragrue. More importantly, 64,440 bugs were reported during the alpha test which the QA team is now meticulously poring over.

As for the upcoming beta, Hazzikostas says that the beta build will be feature complete but there’s still a lot of work remaining. “For us, beta certainly means that the game’s not done but the framework is there and is complete,” he explains. The level cap will also be increased to 60 and players will be able to experience endgame content such as joining a Covenant, running max-level dungeons and raids, soulbinds, and more. He reiterates that these systems are still works-in-progress but the framework should be there.

Blizzard will be sending out beta invites starting next week and will continue to send invites over the course of the beta test.

You’ll find the full livestream below.