An exclusive tour of World of Warcraft: Revendreth the Shadowlands

For this zone, the team tried to answer the question: “What would WoW Translyvania look like?” It has the shape of a gigantic gothic castle that spreads out over a misty forest and a strange pit. Carriages, floating vampire aristocracy, gargoyles and Igor-style little gravediggers called excavators are bustling. The zone is colossal, so my guidance through the realm of sinners – which can still be redeemed in some form – took me through each of the castle’s five protective spells.

The entrance itself has expired, as have the buildings and structures on the castle grounds. This is a problem that many of the Shadowland Zones have, as no new souls come in, as they all go to the Maw. The actual castle looms over the area like a repressive Titan and towers over the village district where players can enter and conquer the land. Sin-stones, tombstones, on which the crimes of the soul are recorded, defile every path. Souls sent here can, over time, etch these sins off their stones as they prepare for afterlife, but the Venthyr’s methods are often terrible and agonizing. While the Venthyrs in the Shadowlands have an important purpose in preparing corrupt souls for the Hereafter, you can not help believing that these vampiric, bickering aristocrats have a serious track of sadism.

The souls who appear here under normal circumstances are “bad guys”, proud and may have justified dreadful things and have the chance to liberate themselves through eons of suffering in the Shadowlands. A famous character from Warcraft who landed here is Kael’thas Sunstrider. Carriages are a common sight throughout the castle grounds. In addition to being a cool aesthetic addition, players can board and disembark at will to accelerate travel or get through the pockets of aggressive enemies. The village community consists mainly of outdoor areas, various dilapidated buildings, and a view of the fog-filled forest where the Venthyr with a false sense of security hunt down tortured souls and hopefully run away to track them down, then “Humble” them.

The next stop on the carriage ride is Cathedral Ward. It is a mix of indoor and outdoor and a significantly higher class than the village below. Here is one of the main dungeons of the extension, the Cathedral of Revendreth. Elevators are distributed throughout, allowing players to go from station to station and explore the vertical space of the zone. Along the way, we discover someone who looks decidedly inappropriate, a sort of ethereal-looking trader who is part of an organization known as a broker.

Brokers are a faction separate from the Covenants and the Maw, a kind of soul trader who can move freely in the Shadowlands. In the wake of recent catastrophes, brokers have seized this opportunity to seize new opportunities for profit and perhaps more. They look similar to the Ethereal faction of several extensions, and the team’s comments make me believe that during this expansion they will be as dubious and manipulative as our old friends.

The Ember Ward is a stark contrast to the rest of the room. This is the only place in Revendreth where the light has actually broken, and therefore the worst nightmare for our light-sensitive friends. This area is destroyed, and the unfortunate Venthyrs sent here as a punishment are either dead, driven mad by the light, or fighting each other for the sparse shadowy pockets that lie upon the station. The ruling class of Venthyr can not torture herself like the other souls, but she has the ember department to deal with dissidents and hustlers. In addition to being burnt by the light, Venthyr slowly goes insane with the exposure. This is not a fun place, but thematically fantastic – the Venthyr have even decided to use mirrors as weapons for stray light.

The massive gargoyle army of the Venthyr is housed in the military division, but both this area and the gargoyles are in decline due to the drought. Here we see an excavator coming from a huge pit – it’s just dirt. The excavators keep trying to rebuild and keep the wards clean, but it’s a fight they lose. The Military Ward is an endgame center with catacombs, enemy enemies and cool animated weapons and items that Venthyr souls have come across.

A short foray through the castle complex illuminates several sights. Several districts make up the castle district, intended for those who prefer the Countess’ favor, a place for old money, dark favors, decadent delicacies and gruesome parties. This is also the first opportunity to visit the area below the castle, a creepy place known as Endmire. In Endmire, creatures that have moved from kingdom to kingdom in Shadowland are twisted and deformed because the anima has landed in the wrong place. The stuff down here is not necessarily the scary Bloodborne feel of the parapets above, but another mix of strange, annoying, distorted reality made up of creatures that defy the mind and explanation, with a wide range of aberrations and Colors that wander around in an unchecked moor. Under normal circumstances, the gargoyles would control these phenomena, but now they just throw these creatures down. Creatures with two heads. Creatures without heads. Energy spiders. The people down there are super weird and kind of great, like a Princess Mononoke / Spirited Away bestiary that went awry.

My tour of Revendreth impressed me a bit. It’s rare that I can not wait to get in and start with what inevitably comes down to grabbing a bunch of quests and doing them the most efficiently to level up. Once players have completed their testing phase in each of the four core areas, they have the choice of a level cap that launches a campaign after the level that is full of quests and adventures that players who select the other options can not do , These decisions shape the zones and cultures even more and bring the player into the fold of this covenant and its special challenges and stories. It’s hard to say, but I think Revendreth has a good chance of ousting Karazhan as my favorite WoW environment ever.

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This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of Game Informer.

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