World of Warcraft Shadowlands is still a little more than a month away, but the expansion's pre-patch should be arriving any time now. The pre-expansion content will introduce the level squish, new character customization options, and some new storylines that help set things up for the coming conflicts in Shadowlands.
Although pre-expansion patches usually arrive about four weeks out from the expansion's release date, Blizzard still hasn't confirmed an exact release week for either the first or second of the pre-patches. That said, players who check the Blizzard game launcher this week may notice a big update running in the background that suggests the World of Warcraft pre-patch is right around the corner...
Starting earlier this week, many players began noticing that some new World of Warcraft content was downloading in the background in preparation for an upcoming update. The update was around 20 GB for us, but would be much smaller for players who have already downloaded Shadowlands content from participating in the beta on the public test realms.
This download is a pretty exciting step forward and hopefully means that players will be experiencing the level squish and all of the other pre-patch updates within just a week or two. Many players predicted that the first pre-patch would arrive on September 22 or September 29, so those predictions are looking more and more realistic and likely now that some of the data is being delivered in the background.
Keep in mind that just because the data is downloading in the background, that doesn't mean the pre-patch content is available yet. This pre-download will just make things go faster and more smooth on whichever day Blizzard does decide to officially launch the first of the two upcoming pre-patches. There have already been a few warning emails to remind players they are running out of time to earn select Battle for Azeroth mounts or other pieces of content that are changing or going away after the pre-patch, so it seems like we're very close to the big change at this point.
Hopefully. Blizzard will deliver some kind of confirmation that the pre-patch is arriving at least a few days before the change actually goes live. If that is the case, then September 22 seems slightly less likely and September 29 may be a more realistic guess. At this point, players just need to wait and see what happens. If there is any last minute BfA stuff to take care of, now would definitely be the time to do it!
Be sure to check back in the coming weeks as more details about Shadowlands emerge. Until then, For the Horde!
World of Warcraft is available now for PC. At this point, World of Warcraft Shadowlands releases on October 26 or 27 (depending on time zone) for PC.