In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, everyone can be a Death Knight

At the BlizzCon 2019 opening ceremony, Blizzard revealed World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, the long-running MMO’s eighth expansion. At the end of the studio’s first deep-dive panel for Shadowlands, game director Ion Hazzikostas revealed something players have been waiting to hear for years: Everyone can be a Death knight.

Starting with Shadowlands (and starting early next year for players who pre-order the expansion), players can make a Death Knight class of any race. This includes the currently unavailable Pandarens from the Mists of Pandaria expansion, and all of the Allied Races added in Battle for Azeroth.

Blizzard’s original reasoning for not allowing Allied Race Death Knights came from a story justification. Death Knights were undead servants of Arthas as the Lich King. Players defeated Arthas back in Wrath of the Lich King, and his successor, Bolvar Fordragon, hasn’t made any new Death Knights. Blizzard reasoned it wouldn’t make sense to have new playable races rise from the dead as Death Knights.

For unknown reasons, that ban on Allied Race and Pandaren Death Knights is being lifted. And players are only a few months away from creating their dream Death Knight, be it a fuzzy fox or mechanical Gnome.

Blizzard has yet to announce a release date for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands or the Visions of N’Zoth patch, where early access for the new Death Knights will start.