Archaeology
First Aid is not the only profession that Blizzard has quietly buried – something even more subtle happened with the profession “Archaeology.”
During the Cataclysm expansion, Archaeology was introduced as a new secondary profession. Here, you travel around the world and have to conduct excavations in a small mini-game. This yields fragments of various races – such as night elves, trolls, or dwarves – which can then be assembled into different finds.
At that time, Archaeology was a rewarding secondary profession. Not only because it included interesting toys and transmog, but also because one could earn a solid amount of gold with the “gray trash.” Story fans loved archaeology as well, because the finds revealed various details about the races that were otherwise not visible in the game. You would get confronted with Azshara’s questionable clothing style or learn that female druids existed among the night elves long ago… or discover that gremlins used to hold tea ceremonies. Little details that story fans eagerly absorbed.
Archaeology was, similar to fishing, a fairly simple side activity that could be performed without much concentration.
In Legion, Blizzard made Archaeology somewhat more meaningful. Players could collect artifact power from the profession, and there were even special events – you could unexpectedly find a demonic relic while digging that summoned demons.
With Shadowlands, the first expansion where Archaeology was completely ignored appeared. There were no new rewards or excavations in the Shadowlands. At that time, the developers stated that Archaeology might reappear in a later patch. At least in Oribos, the capital of Shadowlands, there were some NPCs that were clearly recognizable as archaeologists.
However, this never happened. Neither in Dragonflight nor in The War Within did Archaeology return, meaning all content related to this profession is now over 7 years old. Since then, developers have occasionally hinted at modernizing the profession and bringing it back with a new kind of mini-game.
Yet, in the upcoming expansion Midnight, nothing of the sort has been seen so far. It seems likely that Archaeology is completely on ice and essentially only exists to still offer a way to earn all the old rewards.
