The pre-event for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands sends players back to the areas and the pre-event of Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK). It is considered one of the best expansions of all time. Many are filled with nostalgia and now hope for the best for Shadowlands.
What is this pre-event? Since Wednesday, November 11th, the new Scourge event has been running in World of Warcraft. After Sylvanas destroyed the Helm of Domination, the uncontrolled Scourge is going berserk and threatens to overrun all of Azeroth.
As players, you ensure that this does not happen and fight against the hordes of the returned undead. For this, there are plenty of useful rewards and the reunion with old acquaintances, such as the Argent Crusade.
The whole thing mainly takes place in Icecrown, the endgame area of Wrath of the Lich King, where the last raid of the expansion, the Icecrown Citadel, is also located. However, this is not the only thing currently making players feel nostalgic.
The Pre-event of Shadowlands – Just like back to WotLK
This reminds of WotLK: Along with the pre-event, the famous zombie plague returns, which was already a feature in the WotLK pre-event. This causes entire cities to be overrun by ghouls, into which players can transform.
Players can interact with infected crates or small animals, or be infected by zombies. They then transform themselves into ghouls that are hostile to everything (except other ghouls) and cause a wave of undead that keeps growing. On reddit, this already looked very chaotic during testing:
The plague was one of the highlights of the WotLK pre-event. However, the new rare mobs and bosses in Icecrown also provide a flashback. Because these are all bosses from instances of WotLK with the same loot they had back then.
Among the loot is the largest bag currently available in WoW and a rare mount. Also, each boss can drop the Cursed Keepsakes, which have not been available in the game since the WotLK pre-event.
How good was WotLK? Already in 2019, WotLK was one of the best WoW expansions on MeinMMO and is considered by many players to be the best time of WoW. The reason for this is likely the good balance between gameplay and story, which has rarely been achieved since then.
In our recent survey on the worst WoW expansion, WotLK and Burning Crusade received the fewest votes – which in turn means that the least number of you have bad memories of these two expansions.
If the raids from WotLK are particularly memorable to you, you can currently vote in our survey on which raid in WoW was the best of all time.
Nostalgia in WoW, hope for Shadowlands
This also brings nostalgia: Already the preparatory questline for the event sends you through several areas that you as a player have certainly seen often in the past. However, with the completely new leveling experience in Shadowlands, you will hardly see these areas again. Meanwhile, you will also encounter the Argent Crusade again, an old faction that may become important again in Shadowlands.
The questline culminates in a battle against Nathanos Blightcaller, the servant of the Banshee Queen Sylvanas. Those who played Classic will know this boss, as he was one of the hardest opponents in the open world.
This time we encounter him again in the Eastern Plaguelands, right where he used to stand: in front of his estate with his two dogs. If you want to know what happens after the fight with him, you can watch the cinematic of Nathanos’ fate here.
What does this mean for Shadowlands? The great preparation for Shadowlands now gives players hope that the new expansion will show a better side after the unpopular BfA.
The delay of Shadowlands to November 24th has hit many fans hard, but also simultaneously fueled hope that Blizzard is taking the time to make the addon really good. This was actually the very first time that the release of a WoW expansion was postponed. With the memory of WotLK, this hope is now even more intensified.
