With Shadowlands , some WoW players are dreaming of a time jump. But the idea seems off the table – at least, our interview strongly suggests that.
We at MeinMMO were able to conduct an interview with Lead Designer Kevin Martens. He is responsible for the adventures in the outside world in World of Warcraft and answered our questions. He has already revealed some cool details about the new endgame zone, the Maw, in this interview. But he also had a few other exciting details. From one of his statements, it can be inferred that there will not be a time jump to Shadowlands.
Where does the time jump idea come from? Time behaves differently in the Shadowlands. This was established during Legion in the Death Knight campaign and in the new intro for Shadowlands, time plays a significant role. Game Director Ion Hazzikostas has also confirmed that time behaves strangely in the Shadowlands and is not easy to explain.
Therefore, many fans suspected that there might be a larger time jump after Shadowlands to advance the story of Azeroth. After all, there is already a comic showing Anduin as an old man before a final battle of light against shadow. The perfect hook would have been that during Shadowlands, we fix the problems in the Shadowlands and then “at the end” return from the Shadowlands to find a significantly altered Azeroth waiting for us.
Interview response ruins time jump theory
We had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Martens from the WoW team and asked a question that indirectly hinted at a time jump.
MeinMMO: Regarding the story, will our characters be trapped in the Shadowlands for the duration of Shadowlands? Or will we stay in contact with Azeroth and be able to switch back and forth as we wish?
You can switch back and forth. The player characters are referred to by the inhabitants of the Shadowlands as “Maw-Walkers”. The first thing you do at the start of the game is follow Sylvanas and the kidnapped people through the rift in the sky and enter the Maw for the first time. And you are the first person to have ever escaped from there, apart from Sylvanas. (…)
As part of this ability, you can switch between worlds, not just as a Maw-Walker, but you can also switch from the world of the living to that of the dead. You are a living person in the afterlife, almost like in classical Greek mythology.
Kevin Martens, Lead Designer
What does this mean? Since we will permanently have the ability to switch between Azeroth and the Shadowlands – both as a gameplay mechanic and from a story perspective – not much time will pass in Azeroth. We would notice larger changes quickly and would be in more or less constant contact with the inhabitants of Azeroth. The possibility that we will come back from the Shadowlands at the end and find that several years have passed during our stay in the afterlife has thus been ruled out.
Is a time jump completely impossible? No, of course it would still be possible that something devastating happens at the end of the expansion. But during the expansion, time in Azeroth continues to progress normally, and we are able to switch permanently between worlds. Thus, a time jump seems significantly more unrealistic, as quests and NPCs would have to indicate how much time actually passes.
Would you have been happy about a time jump? Or are you glad that this topic is (presumably) off the table?
