World of Warcraft first launched all the way back in 2004, making it one of the longest running and most successful MMORPGs of all time. The new expansion, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, has players travel all the way to the realms of death itself, and the Shadowlands: Afterlives animated shorts have hinted at the return of old foes and friends alike.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, more than any other expansion released so far, feels like a goodbye to World of Warcraft’s main retail run. There are a few key reasons that this is the case and some conclusions which can be drawn about what this might mean for Warcraft’s future.
World of Warcraft is an old game, and it has been a long time since the game was in its hey-day. In fact, the subscriber count peaked at around 12 million WoW subscribers right around the start of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. After a year of raiding Icecrown Citadel with almost no updates, many players had reached the end-game content for the first time, and with the introduction of the Dungeon Finder the game was more accessible than ever.
The long-term impact of this, however, was devastating, and WoW’s subscriber base began rapidly declining. While more players had access to the top gear and weapons in the game, the new Dungeon and later Raid Finder systems kept players parked in cities and not experiencing the huge world Blizzard had first opened back in 2004. Server communities broke down as cross-server PUGs became possible and once intimidating bosses were now part of the daily grind.
Blizzard no longer releases its subscriber numbers, but it is known that the last August’s launch of World of Warcraft Classic doubled WoW’s subscriber base between then and February of 2020. This simultaneously hints at how small WoW’s subscriber count may have shrunk while also demonstrating that releasing older versions of the game is a reliable way to bring back players.
WoW: Shadowlands appears to be a farewell to Warcraft, even if it doesn’t end up being the final expansion released for the main retail game. The expansion is themed around death, not in the same was as Wrath of the Lich King, but in a far more literal sense. Players will be travelling the realms of death where many will be hoping to get closure on some of the most important characters in Warcraft lore. Is Arthas’ soul in the Maw and can it still be redeemed? What about Kael’thas Sunstrider’s soul in Revendreth, a character fans haven’t seen since The Burning Crusade?
Even controversial figure Garrosh Hellscream is returning in Shadowlands if the Afterlives: Revendreth short is to be believed, and it will be hard for many fans to shake the sense that Blizzard is taking the opportunity to do a farewell tour for some of the most beloved characters in Warcraft.
Furthermore, Blizzard has recently surveyed fans about what they might want from Burning Crusade servers, indicating that WoW Classic may continue into the Burning Crusade and potentially even Wrath of the Lich King and beyond. Eventually, it is possible that Blizzard will simply have different servers for every expansion, with that model being more profitable than developing and releasing new expansions for an increasingly waning number of fans who are subscribed to play the retail game.
The player in World of Warcraft originally began as a near-anonymous adventurer, often introduced as someone left behind to pick up the slack while the stronger fighters among the Horde and the Alliance were conscripted into war. By the time of Shadowlands, the player character is a Champion of Azeroth who has adventured with some of the most important characters in WoW lore first hand, but necessarily cannot be acknowledged in any way in the lore itself.
The narrative of WoW from a player perspective is pretty saturated, with the new games increasingly centering the player in the story despite not being able to deliver a world that actually reacts to them as a powerful figure. By visiting the realm of death itself, Blizzard risks undermining the emotional weight of any death that takes place in the Warcraft multiverse, and by having Sylvanas heel-turn, in particular against the Forsaken, the retail games risk repeating plot-lines, with Garrosh Hellscream also a former Warchief who – some would say uncharacteristically – turned against his people.
It seems likely that Blizzard hopes to use the Shadowlands setting to bring satisfying narrative resolution to some major Warcraft characters plot-lines, particularly ones like Garrosh who risked feeling chewed up and spat out by World of Warcraft’s constant need for new villains and raid bosses.
It could also simply mean that Blizzard now believes that World of Warcraft’s greatest asset is its nostalgia factor, and the developer is trying to tie that into the new retail releases while also developing more WoW Classic-style servers. With less and less economic incentive to focus on the main game and more to focus on old expansion servers, players could see Blizzard creating a breadth of options, perhaps not only including different expansions but different combinations of features.
For example, Blizzard could begin releasing “hardcore” servers or something similar where Dungeon and Raid Finders have been removed from the game to give it more of a classic feel even in later expansions. Players might also see servers which contain content from past expansions with some of the significant graphical upgrades made to characters models and character customization in WoW between Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands, though it is possible that this would run into technical difficulties.
In any case, it will be hard for many fans to ignore World of Warcraft: Shadowlands thematic focus on finality. World of Warcraft appears to be making the transition to its own afterlife, with a change in focus and potentially business model to take advantage of Classic servers and other features which draw back old fans in a way the new expansions cannot. It remains to be seen if Blizzard will continue releasing expansions after Shadowlands, whether the Burning Crusade servers will be released, or whether a reliable old franchise Warcraft will ever truly rest in peace.
World of Warcraft is available now for PC. At this point, World of Warcraft Shadowlands releases on October 26 or 27 (depending on time zone) for PC.
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