Blizzard on WoW: Shadowlands: "Was Sylvanas evil all the time?"

With Shadowlands dropping on World of Warcraft in just five days, we sat down with Blizzard's Patrick Dawson (production director) and Sarah Verrall (lead level designer) to hear about the covenants, players' reaction to new levelling system, the new raid, and more. But, one of the most intriguing things about the upcoming content has to do with Sylvanas, her story arc and the lore in the game.

"Sylvanas is a character that some people love some people hate", admits Sarah during the Gamereactor video interview. "Like she is grey because she is polarising, and everyone is very interested to see what happens here and, you know, it is kind of: What is her endgame? Why has she done everything she's done? Who are her allies? What is she doing in the Shadowlands and how does that impact the direction of the game? I think that is a journey that we are all super excited to take with the community and I can't wait to see what everyone's response is when they find out where it goes.

As Gamereactor's WoW expert Ricardo C. Esteves put it, it's two Hordes chiefs turned evil, but Patrick sees it differently:

"Will Sylvanas turn evil? Or it's just more how she's been the whole time? What are her motivations and reasons?", the production director counter-questions. "It's tough to make that judgement without knowing more of what she is up to, and that part of the story it's going to be unveiled throughout Shadowlands. What Sylvanas has done is introduce us to this other - place, and while this is a scary, unknown and unfamiliar area, it is also a place of exploration that we now get to explore and meet other characters and their stories to figure out some things like: What is she up to? Who is good? Who is evil? And, what if things aren't so binary? What if there is some stuff in the middle, this grey area? Maybe there is some more of that in the story."

What do you expect to discover about Sylvanas' story arc when you explore the Shadowlands starting November 24?