The first major World of Warcraft: Shadowlands patch is coming, and it’s packed with all kinds of big updates. Chains of Domination takes players deep inside the Maw with a foothold to lay siege upon the forces of darkness, adds flying to Shadowlands, and adds two huge endgame dungeon experiences to the mix alongside a smattering of other upgrades for Covenants, soulbinds, and more.
To kick things off, players will finally be able to mount up and access other normal amenities in the hostile environment of the Maw at last. With the Covenants joining forces against the common enemy of the Jailer, this battle takes players through the Maw and to the Sanctum of Domination, a new 10-boss raid full of familiar faces and new surprises. Players get to face off against Torghast’s legendary big bad, the Terragrue inside this raid, but the epic dungeon run culminates with a battle against Sylvanas herself. The Banshee Queen certainly won’t be a pushover, as WoW’s larger-than-life main characters often make for powerful raid adversaries. We’re all hoping that after we defeat Sylvanas that it won’t be revealed that she was really good the whole time and just doing what she had to in order to save Azeroth. Blizzard please no redemption arc for Sylvanas!
Okay, now that I got that out of my system, moving right along to more fun stuff. Outside of the raid, there’s a new wacky 8-boss Mythic mega-dungeon known as Tazavesh, the Veiled Market. The area is run by the Brokers and features travelers, creatures, artifacts and oddities from all over Azeroth, giving Blizzard a chance to explore some fun nods and faces from the world over. While this dungeon is sure to be challenging, it’s going to be a lot more lighthearted and whimsical than the Sanctum of Domination.
“I don’t want to say it’s like a carnival because it’s more like a seedy trading city. But it’s just a such a fun vibe to work with. All the different Broker cartels have kind of come together over the years and created this floating trading outpost where you see more of Broker society, you see different types of Brokers, you’re also going to see what an alien rat that maybe they had brought in a portal from another world might look like,” says principal game designer Jeremy Feasel. “It’s also an opportunity for us to do some really kind of interesting and wacky one-off bosses. So for the first half of the of the mega dungeon, you’re going to be kind of heading around this trading city and checking it out and learning about Broker things, you go into an auction house, into a portal room, so a lot of Broker culture there. And then for the second half of the dungeon, that’s where we get into the heist portion. And this is where a broker steals an artifact and then tries to escape from us by jumping through a whole bunch of portals. So we’re gonna follow him through those portals and fight through a variety of interesting bosses including an infinite pirate dragon, which was not something I ever thought I would say but ends up being pretty awesome.”
Well, I’m in for anything that has pirate dragons, so looking forward to exploring Tazavesh!