Shadowlands, World Of Warcraft Classic 2021 Plans Leak Before BlizzConline

Just the day before BlizzConline – the all-online replacement for what was supposed to be BlizzCon 2021 – is set to kick off, Blizzard's announcements regarding retail World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Classic have leaked out. These leaks detail not only what's next for retail WoW's latest expansion, Shadowlands, but also what will be coming in World of Warcraft Classic in 2021 – something that we're sure most WoW Classic players have already figured out.

The folks over at WoWHead are hosting the leaked materials, which include a collection of screenshots for Shadowlands and info dumps for both titles. The first major content update for Shadowlands will be called Chains of Dominion, and it'll have players delving "into new depths of the Jailer's hopeless domain, seeking to understand the true nature of his malignant plans."

Players will be able to visit Korthia, the "City of Secrets," in an attempt to unite the four covenants – kyrian, night fae, necolords, and venthyr – prior to their assault on the Jailer. The update will add a new 10-boss raid called the Sanctum of Domination and an eight-boss mega-dungeon known as Tazavesh, the Veiled Market. Obviously, we can also expect new cosmetics, gear, mounts, and pets as well, because it's hardly a retail World of Warcraft update without any of those.

As for World of Warcraft Classic, it seems that the long-rumored release of The Burning Crusade will be happening in 2021, allowing players to explore a new realm called Outland and introducing two new races in the Horde's Blood Elves and the Alliance's Draenei. Players will have the option of either keeping their characters on Classic Era servers or bringing them forward to Burning Crusade servers. It seems like this is a decision players can make on a character-by-character basis too, so if you have multiple characters you can seemingly choose to keep some of them on vanilla servers while bringing others forward to Burning Crusade.

While World of Warcraft Classic players have been expecting Blizzard to add The Burning Crusade since Classic was announced, it'll still be nice to have that confirmation that the expansion is coming. BlizzConline kicks off tomorrow, February 19th, and runs through the weekend, so it won't be long before we have Blizzard's confirmation and then some. Stay tuned.