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Blizzard delays World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion

Release moved to later in the year for additional polish and balancing

Blizzard has announced it is delaying its upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft, Shadowlands, to an unspecified date later this year.

Originally due to launch on October 27 and 28 worldwide, Blizzard executive producer John Hight said in a blog post announcing the delay today that more time was necessary for polish and balancing.

"Over the past several months of testing, we've made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands," he wrote. "We're at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share.

"However, as everything started coming together and we've been listening to and building upon your feedback, it's become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces-particularly those related to the endgame.

"Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we've yet created, and while we've made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home."

The expansion's pre-patch, which adds a number of groundwork features for the expansion and was originally slated for October 13, will still be released as planned.

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Rebekah Valentine

Senior Staff Writer

Rebekah arrived at GamesIndustry in 2018 after four years of freelance writing and editing across multiple gaming and tech sites. When she's not recreating video game foods in a real life kitchen, she's happily imagining herself as an Animal Crossing character.