The long-awaited 9.1 patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has finally arrived on the game's public test realm, and data miners have been hard at work uncovering all of the content that it has to offer. While most of the discoveries are hints about upcoming story beats and raid bosses, there have also been a few revelations about new cosmetic options. Assuming these features are available upon release, it will soon be possible for World of Warcraft characters to wear eyeglasses.
Though glasses might seem like a minor detail, WoW fans have been requesting them for quite some time. Players who want to roleplay as a learned scholar or wizened mage — or even just a death knight with astigmatism — have few cosmetic options to represent those archetypes. Steampunk-inspired goggles are available, but they obscure characters' eyes and become a distracting focal point. It's an unexpected addition for an expansion that spends virtually no time in the mortal realm, but a welcome change all the same.
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Six different types of cosmetic eyeglasses have been found so far, including three pairs with full lenses and three pairs with half-lenses. Two of these are sunglasses, which come in a full- and half-rim varieties. They look surprisingly mundane next to some of WoW's more ornate armor, but the contrast could make for a striking look.
These glasses are cosmetic items, which means that players can transmogrify their gear to look like them. It appears that the look can be applied to most items worn on the head, including hats and helmets. Unfortunately, this would mean that players won't be able to wear a hat and glasses at the same time.
The limitation raises questions as to whether glasses need to be treated as gear, or if they could be be implemented as an option during character creation. World of Warcraft players are able to change their characters' looks at a barber, so the option would still be available to old characters. WoW characters already wear undergarments as part of their basic models, so it wouldn't be unheard of for them to wear glasses as well. Then again, adding an object to their heads might cause visual bugs when equipping helmets.
Though data miners were able to find information about the glasses themselves, they weren't able to uncover where these glasses will be found. If the glasses are going to be available in zones specific to Shadowlands, then they're most likely to appear in Revendreth. Of all of the Covenants in the Shadowlands, only the Venthyr wear glasses. Their vampiric nature also makes them sensitive to the sun, so it wouldn't be surprising if they had sunglasses as well.
It's also possible that players will be able to buy glasses in Chains of Domination's new zone, Korthia. As the home of the Brokers, the zone is likely to contain oddities that can't be found anywhere else in the Shadowlands — including spectacles from Azeroth. Tazavesh, the new mega-dungeon, is also known as the Veiled Market, so there might be new vendors there.
Shadowlands has already brought a lot of changes to World of Warcraft's cosmetics, including a slew of new looks available during character creation. In addition to adding glasses to the game, Chains of Domination will also allow players to transmogrify left and right pieces of shoulder armor separately. No release date has been announced yet, but Chains of Domination is expected to land sometime this summer. Players who want a sneak peek of the rest of the new content can check out the PTR now.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is available now on PC.
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