World of Warcraft players will finally have the chance to do battle against Sylvanas, the Banshee Queen, in the upcoming Chains of Domination patch for the game's Shadowlands expansion. World of Warcraft Technical Director Frank Kowalkowski spoke to GameSpot about the brewing fight at BlizzConline, including what players should expect to encounter.
Sylvanas has been an antagonist for years, but never a direct one in battle against the players themselves. The 9.1 Shadowlands update will change that, and Kowalkowski promised that the battle - and its aftermath - will be a pivotal moment for the Shadowlands and Sylvanas in World of Warcraft history.
RELATED: Wrath of the Lich King Could Pose WoW Classic's Biggest Challenge Yet
Of course, there's a whole gauntlet of challenges to complete before players reach Sylvanas; players will need to make their way through the Sanctum of Domination, which is a raid with ten bosses and numerous encounters, culminating in the fight against Sylvanas. Principal Game Designer Jeremy Feasel has also added that Blizzard has put custom visuals in for the raid fights to make them stand out to players, as well as "new and interesting and novel mechanics" and narrative elements within the battles. Blizzard also made alterations to the raid in order to make sure it wasn't too "noisy." In other words, Blizzard is making sure the player class visuals and player covenant visuals wouldn't overwrite the boss abilities. According to Feasel, the purpose of this huge Shadowlands raid is to tell a considerable amount of story, with characters from the past potentially making a return.
Feasel is also looking forward to the Chains of Domination update's arrival on World of Warcraft's public test realm, where Blizzard will gather feedback before releasing the update for everyone. However, for all that Blizzard is teasing the Chains of Domination update, there has been no launch date unveiled yet, either for the public test realm or for the public servers. From what has been revealed so far, the update looks to be a properly challenging one for players to sink their teeth into.
In the meantime, there's been plenty of other news out of BlizzConline to excite players, including on Diablo 2: Resurrected, which got its official announcement at the online convention. Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 also got their share of attention, with Blizzard promising more frequent and consistent updates on Overwatch 2 in particular post-BlizzConline.
Hopefully, more will be revealed about the Chains of Domination update soon, especially its release date, as it's shaping up to be quite the momentous raid for all WoW players.
World of Warcraft is available to play on PC.
Source: GameSpot