With less than two months to go until World of Warcraft: Shadowlands releases, it’s not a great time to be making major adjustments to the expansion’s (arguably) tentpole feature. But that’s just what Blizzard seems to be doing with the controversial Covenant system.
In response to a lot of heated debates and rants (or as Blizzard calls it, “passion“) from players on the subject, Game Director Ian Hazzikostas posted a lengthy development update that covers immediate plans to change how alts will progress through the expansion, a slight reworking of Torghast’s introduction, improvements to PvP itemization, and, yes, changes to covenants.
Hazzikostas resisted calls to yank the system entirely or allow players to mix-and-match abilities between covenants, but said that the devs have “done what we can to minimize the burden of regret” when making build choices.
He expressed concern that the new system might unbalance class roles and access to talents, but said, “While tearing down the entire system may seem to some like the simplest way to avoid that pitfall, we’re committed to working with the community to ensure that players feel viable regardless of their covenant choice.”
As you absorb all of that, you can also take a look at Shadowlands’ new login screen and listen to its main theme:
