[Update]: World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion has been pinned for an October 2020 release date!

If you've been itching to give World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion a try, but you've been unfortunate enough to not get selected for beta access, I might have a bit of good news for you. The Shadowlands pre-patch has now landed onto the PTR (public test servers), and while it might not be the real deal, it does offer a taste of what is to come!

Speaking of which, there's three major things to check out in the pre-patch, though not all of them are fully finished just yet. The first is the new leveling experience that not only offers a much more informative start for new players, but also allows you to level through whichever zones and expansions you like. And best of all, the whole process is significantly faster than on the live servers!

The second keynote are the class changes, and from what I can tell, these are currently all over the place. Some classes feel like they're full finished and are thus really fun to mess around with, while others are quite obviously half-formed and are just waiting for an update that polishes them up. So if you're planning to dive in purely to test out the classes, you might want to wait a little while longer.

As for the third major feature, it is a Wrath of the Lich King inspired event that has both players and NPCs spread the zombie plague throughout the world. While it does unfortunately hit a bit too close to home these days, it's still a pretty interesting event to witness from the safety of a flying mount!

Have fun with the new PTR content, and if you're eager to learn more about Shadowlands, you should hop on over to the WoW website.