In the months leading up to World of Warcraft's next major expansion, Shadowlands, a series of animated shorts are being released to introduce a handful of the coming content's new zones, factions, and key players. This first look into the afterlife offers players an idea about which iconic NPCs are associated with each faction and what the general tone is at each of the four options. The first Afterlife short put a spotlight on Bastion through the eyes of Uther and this time things are shifting back towards a Horde perspective by putting Draka in the featured role.
The second episode, Afterlife: Maldraxxus, follows Draka in the years following her betrayal and murder by Gul'dan's assassins. She finds herself in Maldraxxus where his skills are quickly put to use as she becomes a key assassin within her group in the afterlife. It doesn't take long for things to turn towards betrayal again, but this time Draka sees the twist of the knife coming and manages to stay alive... Or at least, as alive as one can be in the World of Warcraft afterlife.
The new animated short is another impressive one and sets up some very interesting questions about what players are going to find when they are tossed over to the Shadowlands and find themselves stuck in the middle of some of these intense existing conflicts...
Visiting the Shadowlands opens up some very exciting narrative options for the MMO and offers WoW players a chance to interact with long-deceased characters in a way that they haven't done since Warlords of Draenor (aside from some Chromie time hopping). The next animated shorts should each be arriving in the coming weeks and will offer a closer look at what life is like for the deceased who find themselves in Ardenweald or Revendreth respectively. It seems like a safe bet that one of these will feature another Horde perspective and the other will focus on an iconic Alliance character.
Shadowlands doesn't launch until late October, but players will likely start getting into some new content when the pre-patch arrives sometime in the near future. There is no official release date for the pre-patch yet, but it seems like a safe bet that it will arrive about a month before the expansion officially kicks off. That means players probably have less than four weeks to go before the level squish kicks in their max level characters drop down to level 50.
Be sure to check back in the coming weeks as more details about Shadowlands emerge. Until then, For the Horde!
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.
Source: World of Warcraft