World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

 PC
User Score
2.6

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 2560 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 561 out of 2560
  2. Mixed: 98 out of 2560
  3. Negative: 1,901 out of 2560

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  1. Azaiko
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    It's pretty good. Better than past iterations. Good story, less RNG, interesting content, covenants are cool, Torghast is great.
  2. Vikhus
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Jajaja, saw many 0 , from haters, if dont like wow, plz leave, To me is the best expansion since BC and WOTLK, the Art and gameplay on all zones are priceless, I am playing Blizzard games since Starcraft launch, and Hope Blizz stay with us for a long time.
  3. BlackRed1
    Nov 26, 2020
    9
    Amazing gameplay, graphics and lore. It is great expansion after boring Battle for Azeroth. I love new covenant system, it is very rewardable. Game for a long hours!
  4. Vicious23
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Sicuramente meglio di bfa. Le ambientazioni sono bellissime e stavolta avremo qualcosa in più da fare.
  5. marcosbravo1991
    Nov 25, 2020
    8
    More appealing than BFA at least, I think it will evolve in a good expansion with incoming patches, feels good already.
  6. kind0528
    Nov 24, 2020
    10
    Fantastic leveling. In my opinion, This Shadowlands is more impressive than Legion. Beautiful and Awesome. I want to be job seeker. BEAT BFA !!!!
  7. Taronn93
    Nov 30, 2020
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. 10/10 expansion, everything is great, everything feels like Blizzard listened to 4 years of feedback and made this expansion accordingly.… Expand
  8. Furious600
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    I think this is really better than legion. The graphics, zones, covenats, solbinds, transmog looks really incredible. I thinks this will be an awesome expansion if this continue like this.
  9. Oloc
    Nov 27, 2020
    8
    The new expansion brings in a nice breath of fresh air coming from BFA. Getting introduced to Covenants and their abilities though questing has been a fun process for me personally.
    Leveling: Getting from 50 to 60 has not been rather... Fine. While you level for the first time you get to go trough all of the new zones and test the covenant abilities within them, while some zones may be hit    The new expansion brings in a nice breath of fresh air coming from BFA. Getting introduced to Covenants and their abilities though questing has been a fun process for me personally.
    Leveling: Getting from 50 to 60 has not been rather... Fine. While you level for the first time you get to go trough all of the new zones and test the covenant abilities within them, while some zones may be hit or miss depending on your preferences, most of them are generally fine. 4/5
    Story: Without getting into any spoilers, the story takes an odd turn into the new and unknown. We are headed to the realm of death and getting to see what afterlife looks like. While getting to see some familiar faces in the afterlife is nice, the whole experience feels a little not "warcrafty", for those not familiar with the lore it can be very fun, but for the others that got used to a bit more of a traditional style of warcraft lore it may feel a bit odd, this is probably the weakest part of Shadowlands. 2/5
    New Systems: Shadowlands brings with itself a couple of new systems, I'll be mainly talking about the Covenants, conduits and legendaires.
    Covenants are something like Harry Potter houses of Shadowlands, each has it's own theme, abilities and addition perks. Without getting into each covenant, they feel a bit better than I expected. They all feel fairly balanced, I was more encouraged to take the covenant with the ability that I liked the most instead of "The best one for my class". With that being said, your favorite covenant thematically might have a boring ability, which could be a problem for your average PvE or PvP player, they could be forced into a covenant they not prefer just cause of the ability. 4/5
    Conduits bring a new, fun way of making talents. They are usually smaller power ups but could contribute a lot to your character. You will be collecting different conduits while doing verious content. You will have to choose from 3 different types of skill trees and mix and match your conduits within them, making a little, personal and more fun skill system. 5/5
    The new legendary items are gonna be the major power up to your character, these are made by picking the legendary power you want and combining it with a profession crafted piece of gear and some more stuff. All in all, it will be a very customizable piece of gear with a nice buff to your class. Obtaining these legendary powers can be somewhat tough and will sometimes require you to go out of your comfort zone of doing the content you don't enjoy. You might really want a power that comes only from PvP, but you are a PvE player with little to no interest in PvP. Most of these legendary powers are hit or miss with the most effective in most types of content already being figured out. 3/5
    Dungeons: The new 8 dungeons are in, and I've tested them all on the mythic difficulty. I have to say that I'm satisfied. The dungeons provide some challange with room for being creative for the trash packs and boss fights. The bosses have some new and fun mechanics, for example one of them being throwing two players into a pit fight and the winner gets a damage buff, and a bunch of all mechanics mixed and matched into new fun encounters. With that beings said some encounters can get pretty boring and simple once you break them down, so the challange goes down by a lot in those fights. 4/5    … Expand
  10. GhostFaceX
    Nov 25, 2020
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. great addon, beautiful location, interesting storyline, less grindy gameplay… Expand
  11. peilla1
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Amazig new world,characters,story graphics, zones and more. Well done blizzard,thank you!!!… Expand
  12. Pill
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    -excellent, less confusing story telling
    -no more unbalanced corruption systems but back to the roots simple item system
    -excellent visuals
    -excellent sound/voiceovers
    -story-driven sidequests
    -new catchup mechanic for twinks is awesome and less boring
  13. Wilze
    Nov 24, 2020
    9
    I like it, has a fresh new content and the endgame will keep you occupied for a while. Launch could have been better on some realms but other than that pretty fun.
  14. Zillakkamii
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Wonderful leveling system! The covenant system actually made me sit and think about what I wanted, all of the options are varied and worth choosing. ALL of the areas are beautiful and well made, the story and lore of the xpac are all well done and coherent. The classes all feel great with the new abilities. This xpac is so wonderful and I for one am thankful for all the blizz employeesWonderful leveling system! The covenant system actually made me sit and think about what I wanted, all of the options are varied and worth choosing. ALL of the areas are beautiful and well made, the story and lore of the xpac are all well done and coherent. The classes all feel great with the new abilities. This xpac is so wonderful and I for one am thankful for all the blizz employees working from home to give us this masterpiece. Torghast is the best end game I've ever seen in ANY game.… Expand
  15. Spaceshl
    Nov 28, 2020
    10
    Está expansión tiene todo lo que no han tenido las anteriores expansiones.
  16. NickVobelg
    Nov 24, 2020
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Why people are giving low rates for this game without any explanations? I will try to be as down to earth as possible and will give you advantages and disadvantages that I found after 12 hours of playing. Pros:
    - Our lovely cinematics are on the next level now. Lips sync, true emotions, moves - it looks so fresh so after I saw it in the game I ran to YouTube to rewatch it a couple times. Very hard work was done. (This is what you will notice firstly)

    - Story. Despite the fact it is only the beginning of 1.5 year journey, the whole storyline feels like good first season of a series with general conclusion at the end but with the tease of something greater upcoming. I cannot imagine what blizz has prepared for us... especially last cinematic in the maw... it destroyed my mind.
    I have so many questions now and I understand that answers will be soon. Like, IN THIS EXPANSION! Not in 3 years, it will happen soon.

    - Leveling. Omg BFA was so goddamn boring, so the only way to get highest lvl for socond char was freehold for gold. This time I’m exited to go through whole adventure again. I’m playing with Russian language, so I can tell only for Russian version, but acting was the best of all. I felt so into it, every meter of covenants was a pleasure to explore and to help npc’s :D
    Leveling is fast, not boring (almost), and main thing here is - main story now is separated by side quests - covenant “battle pass”
    I haven’t dived too deep into this new system but the way how we receive awards feels fresh and fare. Cons.

    - bugs.bugs.bugs. But it will be fixed anyway
    - Ardenweald. This type of zone we have seen in every last expansion. Blue forest with some magic. From the first quest I was thinking that I want to skip this zone faster. But the story turned out very, I mean, VERY INTERESTING. Ending costs it’s waiting.
    - local quests are hard for solo now. You need to do them for covenant, but effort is unequal to reward. - bugs.bugs.bugs.
    - Maw feels annoying now, always-in-combat-zone. But later you will upgrade urself with special tokens so it must be not that bad. - this expansion is expecting from you A LOT OF FARMING if you want this shiny covenant gear, covenant mount etc. Like, A LOT. 2 hours per day will be not enough at all to get everything until 9.1


    Overall, feels fresh, interesting, there is a lot to come, I really hope Shadowlands will be better than legion and now I am sure it will. If I will not update it later - that means I am disappointed and not playing anymore :D

    Cheers. -    … Expand
  17. justmail
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Great expansion! Bastion zone is beautiful and there are lots of things to do. I always have enjoyed this game and never played it as a competitor to hit the max level under hours or so. If you do that you never loved the game at all. For me it is 10 and above, folks!
  18. Idiot_Slayer
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ultimately the worst thing about this game as a whole, is the elitist, toxic, childish, and unappreciative vocal minority who put their opinions on their channels or turn it into memes so that their opinion is echoed by the wanderers of the internet who join in on something "for the meme". The player base is the absolute worst thing about the game. League of legends (Which is notoriously toxic) is like a glass of fresh water compared to the venom that is spewed in WoW these days.

    The people giving 0 reviews a few days into the expansion are buffoons. It is literally impossible to have played, experienced, or even unlocked all of the content that was added with this expansion. It is the first week and people are judging the first part of the story (yes the leveling experience is only the first part of the story in ANY given expansion).

    To address some of the "Issues" people have:

    - There doesn't need to be a new class every other expansion. Let them work on balancing the classes they have first. I'm sure the people crying about not getting a new class, are also the people crying that they aren't balanced or "complete". Constantly adding new classes makes balancing more difficult, and causes class homogenization.

    - Saying "Classes unfinished" literally means nothing. Unfinished means incomplete, not "if only we had x ability that I just thought up spot then we'd top the meters! But since that ability doesn't exist the class is unfinished!" By that logic no MMO ever has a "complete class"... Just because your class underperforms from what you want doesn't mean its "unfinished" it just means either you go the short end of the stick and didn't get to be the top of the ranking tier this expansion, and/or you just suck at playing your class. Not every single class can be top tier at the same time. There will always be a best and worst.

    - They don't need to add new races this expansion they literally spent the last expansion adding races to the game.

    - The dungeons have all been great, there is a nice range of difficulties amongst them and I look forward to running keys in them.

    - There are tons of recognizable characters as well as the new ones, if you don't recognize the old ones you obviously didn't play back in the day. They have to introduce new lore, story, and characters in order to keep things interesting. The people who complain about them adding new story and characters basically just want classic.

    -Lets list the recognizable characters in the expansion so far just off the top of my head: Sylvanas, Jaina, Thrall, Baine, Anduin, Tyrande, Bolvar, Calia, Nazgrim, Whitemane, Morgraine, Lady Vasjh, Draka, Uther, Kael'Thas, Kel'Thuzad, Taelia, Vol'jin, Hakkar, Milhouse Manastorm, Mueh'Zala (check classic stranglethorn), and others that i cant recall currently. not to mention ones such as Garrosh (who might show up as he was in the revendreth cine) or even characters like Arthas, who haven't shown up yet but almost definitely will, on top of all the small cameos from minor characters such as Cookie from Deadmines.

    - The professions are much better than they were in some (but not all) of the other expansions, (namely BFA and WoD were way worse). And the fact that they are used to make Legendary gear is a good sign for them maintaining a little more relevance throughout. Although Engineering seems to be lacking so far.

    - The zones are nice overall, but people seem to say they like the look of one and then **** on the rest for not matching the aesthetic they like. They weren't supposed to be the same as each other, of course some neckbearded edgelord isn't going to like bastion or ardenweald. The game is made for more people than just you.

    - The people saying "no new systems or features" are, first of all, forgetting that Torghast was added and the game hasn't had something like that before. On top of that they seem to fail to realize that the systems and features they don't seem to see is in fact the covenant and sanctums. They have literally reused assets and systems since they started releasing expansions for this game. Literally all the way back to BC. They always taken things from past expansions and try to put a new spin on it or change it in some way. stop acting like the gaming industry standard of reusing and rehashing ideas is a new thing. its not a new thing. Just look at Elder Scrolls, Skyrim has literally just been reformatted for different platforms and graphically updated and rereleased exactly the same for the last DECADE.

    - People seem to fail to realize that you will get more content as you upgrade your covenant? And that it takes time to do so? And that "time gating" is used to prevent the aforementioned neckbeards from tearing through the whole expansion in a week and then crying that there is no new content for the next few months while the rest of us play like sane people who have jobs, lives, and families outside of the game.    … Expand
  19. Kiberzera
    Nov 27, 2020
    9
    Очень уверенный старт аддона и не смотря даже на некоторые возможные у некоторых лаги, пуск считаю успешным. Надеюсь дальше будет развиваться не хуже, чем Легион в свое время.
  20. Davyjonesx94
    Nov 25, 2020
    8
    Пока всё нравится, в любом случае выглядит лучше чем BFA
    В общем и целом сюжет и локации сделаны хорошо, персонажи запоминающиеся.
    Старт был довольно гладкий, не без багов конечно. Вот никаких лагов, за это большое спасибо!    Пока всё нравится, в любом случае выглядит лучше чем BFA
    В общем и целом сюжет и локации сделаны хорошо, персонажи запоминающиеся.
    Старт был довольно гладкий, не без багов конечно.
    Вот никаких лагов, за это большое спасибо!
  21. Alexstrauss
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    This game brings us back the hole experience of what is World Of Warcraft, you can pass hours leveling and it won't be boring, every minute ia a show of magic and immersion. You can feel a good job done on this expansion.
  22. Charljeeeeee
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    These reviews are wack this is the best expansion to date. The wow community is so whiny and toxic. Best expansion for new players to join.
  23. lastiosa
    Nov 28, 2020
    9
    Went into this with very low expectations after the disaster that was Battle For Azeroth, and to my surprise Shadowlands has been a blast so far. The leveling experience, cinematics, voice acting, etc. have been massively improved from previous versions of the game. The first zone (Bastion) starts out kind of rough but things pick up quickly once you leave that first zone and the storyWent into this with very low expectations after the disaster that was Battle For Azeroth, and to my surprise Shadowlands has been a blast so far. The leveling experience, cinematics, voice acting, etc. have been massively improved from previous versions of the game. The first zone (Bastion) starts out kind of rough but things pick up quickly once you leave that first zone and the story really starts to shine. Most importantly, the level 60 experience so far has been great. There's a lot of stuff to do at endgame but unlike BFA, none of it feels like chores that you have to do. The new covenant system is very well done and it quickly got me hooked into the progression.

    Shadowlands is a great effort from the WoW team after their embarrassing last expansion.    … Expand
  24. Kroan
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    After BfA a breath of fresh air. As good as no mandatory content. Do what you like to do, rather than developers telling you what to do. Great dungeons, awesome story line to level through and PvP is as good as ever. A++
  25. Mertisx
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Good expansion with decent storyline. Trols will be cry at comments, look at their post 24 and 25.11.2020 srsly they coment about 1 day nc about this;D
  26. kittyanya
    Nov 27, 2020
    8
    Story flow, yes. Crying? Yes. Yelling? Yes. The grind? All right. I made it to 60 on a vengeance demon hunter, I chose my covenant. I'm actually happy overall. MUCH better than BFA. They listened on this one.
  27. Greedygolder
    Nov 27, 2020
    8
    Played since BC, the level up experience was nice, story is interesting, covenant are ok. pvp is nice (vendor and all). Cant wait for raid, People giving this a 0 are disingenuous. They did learn a lot from the BFA mistake, they need to continue and make it better.
  28. Jacktronics
    Dec 3, 2022
    10
    I enjoyed just about EVERY minute of this expansion! It started well, ended well, the story was excellent, the gear looked gorgeous, and it ran incredibly well on a full range of PCs. What else is needed?
  29. Murtaz_Rage
    Nov 24, 2020
    9
    This is the best addon from Cataclysm for me. The addon has some problems, but you don't see them under the benefits. So I hope the addon doesn't get any worse with new patches
  30. chickat14
    Nov 24, 2020
    9
    Fantastic leveling. Maybe second best in WoW history. Plenty to do at endgame so far. Lots of quality of life improvements, and most of the things people hated about the last 2 expansions they fixed or changed for the better. Best expansion in a Decade.
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Awards & Rankings

34
#34 Best PC Game of 2020
8
#8 Most Discussed PC Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Apr 12, 2021
    80
    Blizzard finally comes with an alt-friendly expansion that brings back the best features of the previous ones. The patch that WoW desperately needed. [Issue#309]
  2. Shacknews
    Jan 29, 2021
    90
    World of Warcraft: Shadowlands certainly manages to capture the same feelings we’ve had since first started playing the game. The leveling experience overhaul, constant sense of progress with rewards, and new campaign stories make Shadowlands a must-have for any avid player.
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  3. GamingTrend
    Jan 27, 2021
    90
    World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is a return to greatness for the franchise. The content is both accessible and fun for all types of players, and the story actually makes you feel like everything you’re doing is helping to save the Shadowlands. Torghast is one of the best features ever added and makes each experience unique and fun. While there are some issues which can slow down the time it takes to get everything you want, the journey there is still enjoyable.
    Read full review
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