The testing of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands starts this week

Many people returned to World of Warcraft with the release of Battle for Azeroth but now that a majority of players have managed to thwart the plans of the cunning Old God N'Zoth to drive the world into madness, Blizzard is focusing on the upcoming expansion. World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was announced at last year's BlizzCon and since then most of the fans of the game have been dying to know more about it and give it a try. Despite the repercussion of the coronavirus in the industry of video games, the development process of the expansion seems to be progressing as intended, and the alpha testing of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is about to start.

Although the alpha version of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is not going to be available to the general public, those players and guilds that will get to try it will experience some of the new features coming with the expansion, including the new quest interface and spellbook. The latest seems to be one of the most anticipated features of the expansion for seasoned World of Warcraft players, who have seen their characters' abilities simplified and reduced in number over the years. Shamans and Paladins will welcome the return of totems and auras, for example, which used to make those classes more fun for many players.

Not all of the content of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be available for alpha testers. Initially, only the new zone of Bastion will be explorable but the others will be open to the players in the upcoming weeks. Although it is quite likely that we will see a lot of information about World of Warcraft: Shadowlands as the testing progresses, Blizzard has already confirmed that there are quite many features that are a work in process. At least, the announcement of the alpha is useful to confirm that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will have more than enough time to be tested properly before its release, which is probably happening sometime in the third quarter of 2020.