"Shadowlands will arrive in the fall, even if we have to ship it from our homes." That take hasn't aged well! One a few months ago, World of Warcraft executive producer John Hight insisted that nothing is going to stop Shadowlands from launching on time. As it turns out, something -- a whole entire pandemic, to be clear -- has stopped Shadowlands from launching on time.
Once set to release on October 27, Blizzard has been forced to delay World of Warcraft: Shadowlands to sometime "later this year." There's no new date given, but it'll have to be in November or December if Blizzard wants to make good on this new window. At this point, it wouldn't be unreasonable if Shadowlands fell back into 2021.
The reason for the delay is that Blizzard is having some trouble tuning the balance of the endgame. The content (story, zones, quests) is complete, but there's need for polish and balancing.
Even though there's no firm date on when Shadowlands will arrive, Blizzard's releasing the pre-patch relatively soon. That will go live on October 13, and it includes "level squishing" which revamps how character leveling works. (Read all about the pre-expansion patch here.) You'll have more time than expected to get used to the changes in the patch.
An Update on Shadowlands [World of Warcraft]
