World of Warcraft Shadowlands, the eighth expansion of the most popular mmorpg, comes to PC breaking away from its original story to offer new adventures.
Almost four million gamers are already enjoying Shadowlands, the new expansion to the Blizzard World of Warcraft mmorpg. The Californian company, with its reputation on the tightrope after a few years of bad decisions, is playing with a new original content with which it intends to turn the folklore of the franchise around.
Because the expansion, as our colleague Fran already advanced, puts aside the dimes and diretes of the first titles of the saga to enter a plot as new and mysterious as the Shadowlands. This is, our Reviews, of the eighth expansion of World of Warcraft; Shadowlands.
Welcome to the Shadowlands
The anticipation for this new content for the most successful mmorpg of all time was maximum. Blizzard has thrown itself into the void —or into the Maw, if the joke allows us— offering the player new territories and plots to explore with the characters that have accompanied us since the first video game in the saga – of the RTS genre. However, it has little else in common with previous expansions because we are facing an adventure that moves away from the preset to create a new course in the world of World of Warcraft.
Now, on Azeroth, the veil between life and death has been broken. His culprit, Sylvannas. The inhabitants of the titan planet do not know what plans Windrunner has for them, only that she is allied with the Outcast, Zovaal, better known as the Jailer, the governor of the Maw. Since then, the flow of souls has been affected in the Shadowlands, all ending up in the Jailer’s territory. Creepy to say the least.
Creating new stories from scratch requires the player’s attention and for this Blizzard has decided that the expansion starts at A and ends at Z. This forces each and every map to be completed in order until absolutely everything is unlocked, including the dungeons. This decision is up to the consumer’s taste, but the truth is that it seems more than correct to us since in this way the player does not lose track of what happens in the plot.
There are five new main maps – Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, Revendreth, and The Maw – each with its own ecosystem, different enough from each other not to bore the player, and with two new dungeons in each area except for The Maw. , which has its own high-level dungeon called Torghast. These dungeons have some playable new features – not too many – and their mythical versions with slight changes, the star content of World of Warcraft since its launch in Legion.
It is important to note the new sanctuary city, Oribos, a kind of Tower of Karin that enters without pain or glory through the eyes except for its majestic exterior and Las Mauces, one of the key places in the Shadowlands for what it means and what there we will live. It is time, then, to talk about this scenario and its Tower of the Damned.
Tension, harassment and demolition
It may seem from the side that we are talking about a horror video game and not a World of Warcraft expansion, but these three adjectives are what you are going to feel in Las Mauces, a dark and sinister place, of a moderate to high difficulty , in which we are harassed at all times. Every action we take there will attract the gaze of the Jailer – which will be highlighted in a new element of the game interface – at different levels. From enemy sieges, immobilizations or kidnappings; we will not be calm at any time. The best? There is no place to rest in the Maw, no mounts or flying points. There you will survive, to fight for your life and your Styx, an important currency that opens on that map and that we can lose if we do not pick up our body after dying, in the Dark Souls.
This constant pressure opens up new worlds for World of Warcraft players who join a new game experience; Torghast, the Tower of the Damned. It is a tower, as its name suggests, in which each section and floor is built randomly. Inside, Zovaal’s army awaits us as well as materials to create our legendary gear and the Rune Recorder, who designed the Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination. It is a content for up to 5 players where the difficulty increases as we go up the floor and / or wing. In fact, sometimes it is worth going solo rather than in a group if we want to be successful. Each important event within it gives us to choose new abilities that greatly enhance our character so choosing wisely will mean succeeding, or not, in Torghast. And there are a limited number of deaths …
The worst thing about Thorgast, without a doubt, is that it becomes tedious, long and boring to do from minute one and it is necessary to repeat its content every week up to two times if we want to improve our team.
Content little content
Eight dungeons, new affixes for the mythical versions, the Maw area and Torghast are some of the new features of Shadowlands, but there is more, much more. On the one hand, there is the reduction in the maximum level required, which is now 60, important changes in each class, some in the professions, the possibility of choosing an expansion where you can upload your new characters or a new tutorial scenario dedicated to new players who do not he finishes convincing us.
On the other we have the system of the Curias. At level 60 and after completing the main campaigns, we are urged to choose a faction to give our lives for, namely between Venthyr, Necrosenores, Kyrianos and Night Sylphs. Each one has its own chain of missions with a story, unlockable characters that offer us new abilities and other improvements for the area in which they reside. The control table is back a bit more chaotic, a renowned system by which we unlock improvements for our Curia and different benefits that will give us a better quality of life.
The problem here – and it’s been going on for far too many years – is that there are a lot of missing tutorials that explain features like the adventure table, the renown system, what happens in the dungeons when you join a Curia, and tons of other examples. And it is not only our perception, we have asked the community and they feel just as lost having to search outside the game itself —and even the official website or its forums— to understand something of their news.
Beyond that we have the typical daily of each map, world daily, weekly, the return to the ring of the PvP equipment vendors, a new chest system with weekly rewards, new profession levels and little more.
Sensations
Exploring new grounds in Warcraft folklore has been a great experience. We have experienced four campaigns – one for each important map – with very interesting and even emotional stories thanks to some of the characters that appear in them. In this sense, Blizzard has gone one step further in the art of storytelling, further improving what it started with Cataclysm.
It is true that there is no room for confusion and that if we complete the secondary missions at the same time as the main one we will reach the maximum level very soon, but in our opinion the path to level 60 is very satisfactory thanks to its wonderfully woven plot.
On the other hand, it must be made very clear that the eternal battle of the Alliance against the Horde matters a pepper in Shadowlands. The story is much less intricate than normal and this rivalry is not discussed at any time, so forget about disputes between both factions.
At all times it has given us the feeling that this change of scene has made the game even flatter in conception than it already was but extremely overwhelming at maximum level. To leave some figures, while we level up we do not have to worry about anything at all, just completing missions. At level 60, the daily, weekly missions, world missions, elite monsters in the Maw, Thorgast and its two weekly wings – with their different floors -, the renown system, the Curia campaign, the adventure table are opened. , six new currencies to manage, the mythical dungeons, high-level PvP, the Castle of Nathria raid, advance the Rune Recorder missions, create your legendary team… and all of that is reset / continues every week.
Flat and simple level-up experience, absence of tutorials at critical points, agglomeration of tasks at the last moment, balance more than doubtful in life and powers of enemies, difficulty much more noticeable in Las Mauces than in the rest … it is as if Blizzard would have done everything in a hurry. And it actually had to delay its release.
Even so, the only thing that has really bothered us is the huge number of options that are unlocked at the maximum level together with the few explanations of the failure that we are given with each unlock. Everything else has not interfered too much with our gaming experience.
We had the opportunity to participate in mythical pluses as well as to enter the Castle of Nathria, the first raid dungeon and except for the first day that the room servers were crashed and did not work, the game experience has been pleasant. It is true that lag is experienced in a dungeon – like Mists of Tirna Scithe – but not at all times.
And to top off this unusual subtitle we wanted to mention how fantastic the character creator is now. Blizzard’s effort to make the heroes of Azeroth stand out when they come together en masse is noticeable. There are tons of facial customizations for almost all races and some really cool things can be achieved with this editor. However, it still has a lot to improve because practically any mmorpg from a few years back is better in this sense. There are also playable races with more customizations than the rest, so this novelty is not complete either.
Technically
With the technical section we also have mixed feelings. The Shadowlands requirements are slightly higher than those of Battle for Azeroth, although this time the use of an SSD is almost mandatory. However, beyond a couple of details in Ardenweald or in Revendreth’s constructions, the BFA scenarios have seemed much more worked out. There are quite obvious differences between the different maps and they manage to fulfill their mission but it is not so surprising. Ardenweald is perhaps the area that requires the most hardware consumption as there are quite a few performance issues with that area. You have to consider this.
Both the color palette and the motifs that adorn each place – along with its soundtrack – do their job very well, something typical of Blizzard. Also noteworthy that there are no loading screens when traveling between different worlds of the Shadowlands, everything is connected. Of course, if we don’t pull fast travel.
In sound, the same. A great soundtrack that perfectly accompanies what the Shadowlands player wants to capture. Grim, mysterious, calm themes … a very different register from BfA – less fast-paced and / or epic – but with great production. The voices and the texts, as always, in a great Spanish to take off the hat, with recognized voices in all areas and with very good interpretations.
CONCLUSION
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands knows how to hook the player thanks to its innovative twist on the orcs and humans plot as well as new playable content added. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air on the brand and best of all; very exciting. There are little things that we have not liked but most of them can be “pampered”, especially in a long journey. If you haven’t played the Blizzard mmorpg in a while, you might be in for a surprise with Shadowlands; it is quite worth it. If we have to highlight something in particular, it would be Las Mauces, an extensive mysterious terrain, very dangerous and with few escape routes that is capable of putting you in tension.
THE BEST
- The plot is totally new and knows how to hook.
- The Maw is one of the most innovative content in WoW history.
- The new character editor, even with its buts.
- Content to bore.
- Torghast can give a lot of play …
WORST
- … although it is tedious, long and boring content.
- Few surprises in professions, dungeons, settings and / or essential content.
- You may not like that the story is so guided.
- Tutorials are missing for most high-level content.
Very good
A game with a remarkable finish that we will enjoy and remember. A good buy, highly recommended for lovers of the genre. It is well cared for at all levels.
