I Believe that early on they were on the right path with shadowlands thematically.
Each zone represents something about the Lich King and Death Knights as a whole.
Revendreth = Blood
Maldraxxus = Unholy
Ardenweald = Frost (The Winter Queen)
Bastion = The Valkyr and resurrection magic.
Artistically these zones SLAP.
But shadowlands has no teeth. its like a parody of its former dark self.
Which may have some parrallels with Blizzard itself but we wont get into that.
We definitely should have experienced how Kelâthuzad peered into the shadowlands and saw these places of great power and mimicked them for his own gain.
But as soon as the game got down to executing its story it fell apart into pieces.
Something happened when designing zone quest stories that took SO LONG it totaled the expansion. Its kind of heartbreaking that this was an obviously better story and they just chose not to pursue it. when the art team had been told to nail those exact concepts and did their jobs perfectly. perhaps a different story had been initially proposed in concept around the time the art team got their orders.
No way, even on a very conceptual level the Shadowlands were garbage. The afterlife is a theme that should never be explored, it ruins too much of the world. Once that curtain is pulled back it canât be put back on again.
No characterâs death will ever have impact ever again.
I think the initial concept of Shadowlands as an expansion, that is getting to visit the freaking afterlife, was an exceptionally bad idea in itself. At least it is a very bad idea if you care about world building and immersion.
SL was doomed from the start in that regard. It couldnât work, even with the proper execution (which it also lacked, obviously).
It could never work simply because it required damaging, retconning and mocking the belief systems of the orcs, trolls, tauren, taunka and other such spiritual races.
Blizzard really didnât think this through when they came up with the Shadowlands
They would of been wiser to of gone the Legion route: spend most the expansion in a HD updated Northrend, and then 9.2 would be our âArgusâ, or basically the Maw. Have events like the legion portals, where the worlds briefly shown are various afterlives.
I think the biggest lie they sold us is that Ardenweald was supposed to be winter themed. Still trying to figure which Winter Iâm supposed to be the envoy of.
Winter probably refers to the faerie courts, each one representing a season and a section of the cycle. Since its original purpose was to return Wild Gods to life, (Winter going to Spring), thatâs probably what they were going for. It doesnât⌠totally work since we only have concepts for Spring and Winter, with Summer maybe existing in the âLifelandsâ, no clue where Autumn would fit though.
Personally I donât think they should have touched the afterlife at all, but it was made even weirder by them sprinting away from anything that could have linked this Shadowlands lore to existing stuff. If theyâd made things more vague instead of having this rigid system of organization and sorting, I think it could have been interesting.
Everything felt too mechanical. Funnily enough it felt soulless. There are so many cultures(especially on the horde) where death plays an important part and they decided on a soulless mechanical afterlife.
Maybe Ardenweald has seasons we donât know about. There are 4 Wilderlings, one for each season. The Paladin spell also references seasons. Maybe we came there during Spring/Summer?
Thatâs fair, it wouldâve been nice to see that depicted in the actual zone though because the armor sets and Wilderling mounts are top tier and I LOVE them. When they described Ardenweald in the initial discussions of SL, I pictured a sleepy, wintry forest when nature sleeps, not oversaturated blue glitter assault.
Devosâ fate is awful. Itâs too bad she ended up in the dumpster fire that was the Kyrian campaign.
If I had the reigns during Shadowlands, I would have made it so each zone was a type of underworld where wicked souls go, or at best a few limbo-type afterlives where theyâre purged of sin or await judgement. This way it wouldnât be nearly as disheartening to see them in such a sorry state; these are the places where only bad people go. All the good afterlives are left untouched and out of our reach, meant to be seen only by the worthy dead.
By focusing on various hells and purgatories, we get enough content for a full expansion while leaving what truly matters to the imagination. Not everyone has the same idea of what a happy afterlife would be, but Iâm pretty sure most agree getting eternally boiled alive would be lousy.
I donât think the concept of going into an afterlife is inherently too weird. You do it all the time in other fantasy settings like The Elder Scrolls. Thing is, ya kinda want it to be an established part of the setting thatâs a pretty core part of the lore. And SL was at best tangentially related to what little afterlife lore came before, when it wasnât ignoring or retconning it.
I wouldnât throw out the baby with the bathwater. Weald and Draxxus hanging around as a life and death cosmic realm is fine. They had fun characters I wouldnât mind seeing pop up occasionally when itâs relevant. Sire Denathrius and his Dreadbois could hang around and serve as this settings proper Lucifer, Asmodeus type. WoW could use a Lawful Evil force, the Legion and Void are too chaotic and arenât one for faustian bargaining unless necessary.
Beyond that I honestly canât say Iâd be bothered if it never came up again.
The Unseelie are are predarory and ruthless as hell in folklore. The concept of the old saying âthe devil is in the detailsâ originally referred to fairies tricking mortals with contracts over exact wording and old social decorum. Nightfae are more like the summer Seelie who have been white-washed by Disney one too many times.
I actually didnât mind the Shadowlands and its overall narrative. I thought introducing us to the realms of death was a good move (other games have literally done this with no issue, see God of War, Assassinâs Creed etc and being sent to the Underworld etc). The biggest issue for me was how they used the Jailer.
Now apparently in the Sylvanas novel, from what I understand (I do not own it yet, itâs on the âto buyâ list) the Jailer is fleshed out more and its easier to understand his motivations. If true, thatâs great, but unfortunately none of that is represented in the game, so ultimately the Jailer comes off as a boring villain, one of the most boring in fact.
Granted, if they didnât have all the drama to deal with at Blizzard HQ during Shadowlands development, maybe weâd have gotten something more fleshed out. Baine was supposed to have a full story in Shadowlands, but that was cut so all he does is sit in Oribos for the entire expansion after being liberated from the Maw, at least until the Zereth Mortis content where he speaks up about Sylvanas and how she should stay sleeping.
But what might have been sadly isnât what we got, so Shadowlands will always be a âmehâ expansion as far as the overall experience is concerned. It had potential, but that potential was squandered.
Ardenweald is pretty unfair when you think about it. They spend time trying to revive Wild Gods, who are âbetterâ than us mere mortals and deserve revival more than we do. They even would rather try to revive Hakkar, than an average joe. What value does Hakkar bring to Azeroth?
