Blizzard announces World of Warcraft Shadowlands' final major content update, Eternity's End
Plot armour.
Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft Shadowlands' next major content update amid a troubling time for the veteran MMO.
Content update 9.2, dubbed Eternity's End, is the final major content update for Shadowlands, Blizzard said.
It supposedly brings the story to a conclusion as players try to "thwart the Jailer's plans to unmake reality".
In an announcement video, below, Blizzard teased a new zone called Zereth Mortis. This is the home reality of the First Ones, the "mysterious architects responsible for all of the Shadowlands' afterlives".
There's a new raid, called Sepulcher of the First Ones. Here, players fight with the Jailer's allies before getting the chance to face him.
Each class gets a unique armour set inspired by the Progenitors. There's a new quest hub called Haven, where players work with the locals to fight the Jailer's invading forces.
Mythic-only mega-dungeon Tazavesh will be split into two smaller dungeons, each available on heroic and Mythic+ difficulties.
The announcement of Eternity's End comes at a particularly troubling time for World of Warcraft and Blizzard, which continues to battle the ongoing fallout from the various lawsuits and investigations relating to its company culture.
This month, Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal stepped down after just three months in the job, leaving Mike Ybarra to lead the once-legendary studio solo.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's monthly active user count continues to drop.
The developer's monthly active users (MAUs) total was down 13 percent year-on-year to 26 million players during the recent quarter. That figure means Blizzard has shed a million active users since May, and three million total since the quarter before that, when it was at 29 million.
Blizzard doesn't reveal World of Warcraft player numbers, but the MMO has had a tough time of it recently, and the feeling among the community is it has lost players to rival MMOs Final Fantasy 14 and Amazon's New World.
Reaction to the Eternity's End announcement among fans has been mixed. Its developer preview video has had 12,000 dislikes on YouTube, compared with 13,000 likes. The last content update for Shadowlands, 9.1, did not go down well, and there's a feeling two major updates for Shadowlands isn't enough.
There are also significant complaints about the current World of Warcraft story. All eyes, then, will be on 9.2 to see how this controversial plot comes to an end.
Blizzard did not announce a release date for Eternity's End, but did say it was "just around the corner".