Shadowlands Release Delayed & Pre-patch Date

Collector's Edition WoW

Wow… so, in the end, while my release date prediction was originally spot on… the pre-patch guess was horribly wrong (it’s now slated for October 13) and with todays announcement, I’m retroactively wrong about the release date too (see wowhead post). More importantly, though, we now have more BFA than we expected and a longer wait until the new expansion… is this good?

I was just today watching this new Bellular video and… well his thoughts on the expansion state echo mine (though, since I just got beta 12 hours ago, my opinions are mostly from streamers, youtubers, and friends feedback) and probably say it better than I could… so I’ll just link the video below.

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What to do Before Shadowlands: A Compilation

Given that the expansion prepatch has to be soon… right?… right!? Every content creator is taking their shot at telling us what to do before then… and it seemed to me that bringing a bunch of these together was better than rehasing the same ideas myself. Here ya go.

Wowhead’s Overall Guide: https://www.wowhead.com/what-to-do-before-shadowlands

Then a bunch of specific things they thought you should focus on:

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Shadowlands: Prepatch Release Date

World of Warcraft Shadowlands

So, it’s becoming quite apparent that, while I was right about the release date for the expansion, I was wrong about the release date for the Shadowlands prepatch. Wowhead has a post breaking down their thoughts for the prepatch date – in a very similar way to how I did. They show more of the examples of time between prepatch and release, but they don’t include the information I did about the time between prepatch PTR and prepatch release. So, a little more of some and a little less of others.

At the time, based on the idea that Blizzard gives 2 week notices before the end of the PVP season (a detail I have not been able to confirm and they didn’t show proof of), the earliest it the prepatch could have been was the 29th of September, not the 22nd as a late option I had suggested. At this point, I’d say the 22nd is almost for sure out as there’s been zero prepatch announcement and the 29th is even starting to look sketchy. So, could it really be releasing on the 6th of October? This would end up being the shortest prepatch in WoW history.

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Shadowlands: Release Date Announced (and We Were Right)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8q5gHTCFlbg

So, at Gamescom today Shadowlands was confirmed to be releasing on the 27th of October. Based on my previous prediction that ended up being confirmed today, I’m assuming the prepatch will be either September 15th or September 22nd. Nice to see we are finally moving forward with the game, however, given how limited beta access has been, I still worry that it will be truly ready. After the break I’m including Blizzards full post about the release schedule (which has a special date for North American servers).

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Shadowlands: Release Date Info (Prepatch AND Launch)

Today we got the patch test realm (or PTR) updated for the Shadowlands prepatch event. This includes the level squish, stat squish, corruption removal, unpruning and other ability changes, and the start of the prepatch event story. I think we’ve finally reached a time where it makes real sense to start full speculation on the Shadowlands release date.

Without further ado: Shadowlands prepatch will be September 15, 2020. And the Shadowlands release date will be October 27, 2020. After the break, I provide my reasoning, with a couple of sources and some ptr/prepatch/launch date history. If you want to know why, want to argue with me about why, or want some data to rub in your friends faces about why, then click the more link below.

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