World of Warcraft Dev Tracker

Beyond Azeroth’s shattered sky, a realm of infinite afterlives awaits: the Shadowlands, where mortal souls go to reckon with their pasts, discover new purpose . . . or suffer an eternity of torment. Seize your destiny beginning October 26.

Upon entering the Shadowlands, Azeroth’s champions will encounter an otherworld in disarray. Virtuous souls are being wrongfully cast into the eternal darkness of the Maw, while the Covenants—powerful factions who hold dominion over the afterlife’s disparate realms—face ruin and strife as the flow of the Shadowlands’ essential anima mysteriously dwindles. As an ancient, long-bound evil gathers the strength to break its chains, players must carve their path through the uncharted reaches of the beyond, forge a pact with the Covenant that most aligns with their own principles and purpose—and ultimately restore balance to the hereafter.

Join the Glob...

[Updated Aug. 27] The Shadowlands Collector’s Edition is Shipping Early 

Good news! The Shadowlands Collector’s Edition will ship from retailers early beginning on October 13 ahead of the start of the October 26 expansion launch date.

Once you receive your Collector’s Edition, you’ll be able to explore the many keepsakes right out of the box including the Covenant Sigils– Four-Pin Collector’s Set, Art of the Shadowlands art book, Shattered Sky mousepad, and the Collector’s Edition Digital Soundtrack Key.

When you redeem your Epic Edition game key, you’ll also receive 30 days of game time along with access to the Epic Edition digital goodies immediately to enjoy while you wait for the official global launch of the Shadowlands expansion beginning October 26. Once live, you’ll be able to join with your allies to explore all of the epic ne...

As Shadowlands continues further into Beta, we wanted to provide an insider’s look at the development process of creating some of the great features that you’ll see in the expansion. In this Engineer’s Workshop, we’re focusing on developing a feature simultaneously for mobile and PC platforms with the new Adventures feature, our new offline progression system for Shadowlands. Adventures is a spiritual successor to Missions & Followers systems from previous expansions that allows you to send parties comprised of five adventurers to fight enemy encounters in an auto-battler format.

It Begins With System Design

Every feature begins in system design where our designers take a set of goals and hammer out the framework to create what’s known as a feature pitch, which t...

Join us during the gamescom Opening Night Live stream to watch the first of four new animated shorts, Afterlives, offering you a window into the ancient and powerful Covenants that rule over the four new zones in Shadowlands.

Where: ...

As a part of our ongoing series of articles featuring many of the collectibles in World of Warcraft, we've set our sights on Cataclysm. Dig into the many riches found in this expansion. There are a variety of ways to lay claim to these mounts, pets, and toys, whether it's from defeating a rare boss, collecting specific currencies, or proving your bravery on the Molten Front, you're sure to expand your stash of treasures.

Currencies

There are several different currencies used in Cataclysm. Here are some of the primary types that you'll want to make sure you have at hand.

• Gold
• ...

We are excited to announce that in the Shadowlands beta, you can enhance your game’s visual fidelity with our newly added ray-traced shadows.

Ray tracing can provide heightened visual quality by rendering shadows more realistically. This visual improvement is a great fit for World of Warcraft’s distinct stylized art direction, and helps create a more immersive world.

Rendering Realism

World of Warcraft has historically used a single directional light (e.g. a skybox containing a sun, a glittering galaxy, or a chaotic cluster of lightning) to illuminate a scene. At times, we’d insert a light inside a space even when it didn’t necessarily have a source—for gameplay purposes, we can’t have you scouring a dungeon in complete darkness, even if the area has no obvious objects to act as a light source. With the addition of ray-traced shadows, World of Warcraft can now support additional shadow-casting lights (e...

War is upon us. Earlier this month, one of the most anticipated events of World of Warcraft: Classic went live—the Ahn’Qiraj war effort. Entire Classic realms—the might of the Horde and Alliance combined—came together, contributing resources to open the gates and unlock the Ahn’Qiraj raids. When the War of the Shifting Sands took place the first (and only) time in 2006, thousands of players from each realm flew or hoofed it over to Silithus to partake in or witness the chaos. The turnout was beyond the development team’s wildest imaginings and, simply put, we were not prepared. Servers quickly become overloaded, and many players were caught in a loop of logging in, disconnecting, and trying to get back online over a 12-hour period while our engineers scrambled to hotfix issues and get players reconnected. While we did manage to stabilize servers during the event, and learned quite a few lessons, we saw opportunities to do better. Fifteen years later, we were read...

Sixteen of the best Arena World Championship (AWC) teams from North America and Europe will compete in the very last stage of the AWC Battle for Azeroth season. Watch the AWC Battle for Azeroth Circuit live every weekend for four weeks beginning August 22 at 10 a.m. PDT only on YouTube Gaming to see who will compete at the AWC Regional Finals.

Enter the Arena

The top Arena teams in North America and Europe have emerged after a grueling four week-long season of open bracket AWC Cups. They have proven themselves worthy, and now face their biggest challenge. The eight best teams from each region will...

The Horde and the Alliance face a new challenge within the Shadowlands, but even the most dedicated champions can’t be at their computer all of the time. To stay on top the latest events in Azeroth, you’ll be able to download the free mobile app that lets players take World of Warcraft with you anywhere you go with multiple expansion support—including the new Adventures feature in Shadowlands.

With the updated WoW Companion App, you’ll be able to choose from the Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands expansion to access the content you want on the go, view the latest World of Warcraft news, and set your favorite characters for quick access.

Note: To access each expansion’s content within the app, you’ll need to have first unlocked it within the game.

Plan and Manage Your Shadowlands Adventures

With the updated WoW Companion App, you’ll be able to delve into your role ...

Get swept away on an auditory journey through the music of the Tides of Vengeance, Rise of Azshara, and Visions of N’Zoth content updates.

Music from Battle for Azeroth: Tides of Vengeance

0:00:00 - Boralus Intro by Sam Cardon, Leo Kaliski
0:00:24 - Kul Tiran Human Allied Race by Sam Cardon
0:17:39 - Kul Tiran Battle by Sam Cardon, Glenn Stafford
0:37:14 – Zandalar Forever by Sam Cardon
0:56:31 – Zandalari Troll Allied Race by Sam Cardon
1:19:43 – Forsaken Flame by Adam Burgess
1:37:17 – Night Warrior by Jason Hayes, Leo Kaliski
1:55:34 – Islands Dark Forest by Glenn Stafford
2:10:59 - Islands Vrykul Longboat by Glenn Stafford
2:22:42 – Crucible Of Storms by Neal Acree, Leo Kaliski
2:29:44 – Windrunner by Sam Cardon
2:39:36 – Warsong Gulch by Glenn Stafford
2:43:13 – Arathi Basin by Glenn Stafford
2:48:44 – A B...

Prepare to put your tactical skills to the test. In the expansion’s new Adventures feature, you’ll send your allies into the Shadowlands to tackle unique challenges for your chosen Covenant. You’ll need to be strategic about how you take on these combat puzzles, including who you’ll send to face them and how you’ll use their skills to claim victory.

You’ll also be able to check in on and continue your Adventures offline with the WoW Companion App.

A New Way to Adventure

Once you’ve joined your chosen Covenant, you’ll be able to begin undertaking Adventures from the dedicated table within your Sanctum. Through the interface, you’ll be able to view available Adventures, the associated rewards, the cost to undertake them, the state of your units, and how challenging the enemies are within that Adventure. You’ll want to choose a solid mix from your Adventurers, Soulbinds, and troops to create a party o...

With the completion of the War Effort and the ringing of the gong, the 20-player Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj and 40-player Temple of Ahn’Qiraj become available, luring adventurers into their depths to face the Qiraji—and ultimately, the Old God C’Thun.

• Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj
• Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

The Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj is an outdoor 20-player raid dungeon located in Silithus, and players can traverse much of it while mounted.

Raid Bosses: 6
Level: 60
Location: Kalimdor – Silithus
...

The Alliance and the Horde continue to heed the call to arms and soon the Scarab Lords will rise at the ringing of the gong on realms who have completed the war effort and hearken the way into The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj and ruins of Ahn’Qiraj.

The great desert fortress of Ahn'Qiraj, long sealed behind the Scarab Wall, is home to the insectoid qiraji, a savage race set to mount an assault to devastate the continent of Kalimdor. But something far more sinister lurks behind Ahn'Qiraj's walls: the Old God C'Thun, an ancient entity whose pervasive evil had suffused Azeroth since time immemorial.

Join the War Effort

Supplies are needed to fuel the war effort against the sinister forces of Ahn’Qiraj. You’ll need to work alongside other members of your faction to contribute the resources needed open the ancient citadel’s gates ...

Updated Aug. 18: The achievement Phenomenal Cosmic Power will no longer be obtainable once pre-patch goes live. This is due to certain Rank 4 Essences no longer being available to earn after pre-patch (e.g. Vision of Perfection).

Updated July 24: Added The Hertz Locker achievement to the list of unobtainables (and how to earn it) in the pre-patch tab.

The Mighty Caravan Brutosaur section has been revised to reflect that the accompanying Feat of Strength—Conspicuous Consumption—will be earned if you purchase it from either Battle for Azeroth vendors prior to pre-patch or from the Black Market Auction House afterward.

When Sylvanas Windrunner shatters the veil between worlds, you’ll be leaving Azeroth behind—at least for a time. But before you journey to the Shadowlands, you may want to spend your remaining moments in the mortal realms seeking out a few rewards that will no longer ...

An all-new official prequel novel to the upcoming Shadowlands expansion penned by New York Times bestselling author Madeleine Roux, Shadows Rising is the next epic tale in our novel series. Shadows Rising is available to purchase on Penguin Random House now.

Read on for a summary of things to come followed by an excerpt straight from the heart of the upcoming expansion prequel novel.

Book summary:

“The Horde is nothing...

The Shadowlands beta test is right around the corner. To help keep you informed, we’ve rounded up our latest preview articles.

Shadowlands Preview: Soulbinds

Form a Soulbind with key members of your Covenant to gain beneficial traits so you can effectively combat all who stand in your way. [LEARN MORE]

To be cast into the Maw is to be doomed to a bleak eternity. In this tumultuous, hopeless land, the vilest souls in the cosmos are imprisoned and tormented forever. Should the ancient evil chained here break free, all of reality will be consumed.

Return to the Abyss

The Maw is where you’ll begin your journey in the Shadowlands—and after you’ve traveled through the realms of Death, you will once again be called upon to return and face its horrors. Here, you will engage in an ongoing conflict with the Jailer to restore balance to the Shadowlands. Your ventures and accomplishments in this dreadful place will help you better understand your enemy and gain power to withstand his relentless assaults. However, every triumph draws the watchful eye of the Jailer, who will send his forces to assail you until you succumb to darkness.

Before the emergence of mortals who could walk the Maw, the Mawsworn knew their enemies had no hope...

The venthyr are aristocratic overseers of souls burdened with excessive pride and wickedness. They guide troubled souls upon the rigorous path to atonement, harvesting anima to keep their realm strong.

If you’re seeking a bit of grace wrapped in a bit of sin, then look no further than the aristocratic and elegant Venthyr Covenant. Every day among them brings punishment and reward—though telling the two apart can get a bit fuzzy. But beneath the polish and refinement, the seeds of rebellion against the master of the realm, Sire Denathrius, lie planted. . . .

If you’re a master of discretion and keen on intrigue, then the Venthyr Covenant is waiting for you to join them.

...

In the realm of Ardenweald, where spirits of nature are reborn, you will help shape the fate of the night fae by protecting their sacred groves against the vile Drust.

If you choose to return to this twilit realm as an ally of the Night Fae Covenant, the friendships you cultivated during your time in Ardenweald will be ready to take the next step.

The cycle of rebirth in Ardenweald is teetering on the precipice of no return. Every grove that dies to the anima drought and is left to rot has been twisted by the Drust into a thorned gateway to Ardenweald, and its pestilence fuels their wicked magic. If you are to save these umbral wilds from a doomed afterlife under the Drusts’ blackened thumbs, you’ll need to ...

Among the necrolords, strength is rewarded and weakness cast aside. The souls of the ambitious and contentious are forged into an immortal army charged with the defense of the Shadowlands.

In the birthplace of necromantic magic, those who master the powers of death turn legions of ambitious souls into relentless armies. Should you join the Necrolords, you will take on the role of protector of the Shadowlands and carry the weight of a divided house upon your shoulders. But are you the one that prophecy has foretold?

If you’re a believer in the power of might? Then the Necrolords Covenant just may be where you place your loyalties within the Shadowlands.

The Necr...