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World of Warcraft’s final Shadowlands patch arrives on Feb. 22

Eternity’s End is Shadowlands’ closing act

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands - an ancient being made up of rough shapes, with a globe head surrounded by floating constructs, guards a mysterious sepulcher Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Cass Marshall is a news writer focusing on gaming and culture coverage, taking a particular interest in the human stories of the wild world of online games.

The final patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is set to arrive on Feb. 22, and it will bring players to a mysterious realm of creation in order to finally confront the Jailer. Patch 8.2 includes the new zone of Zereth Mortis, the return of class-themed tier sets, the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, and more.

Blizzard has introduced a new element to the Warcraft mythos with Shadowlands; the First Ones are new powerful figures who created the Pantheon of Death we’ve been hanging with all expansion. The Jailer, this expansion’s antagonist, is storming that realm in order to seize their secrets and undo all of creation. I guess you could say the stakes are pretty high on this one.

Fans have been critical of the Shadowlands story thus far, and the Jailer hasn’t proven a particularly popular boss. There have been several production problems with Shadowlands as well, amplified by the cultural crisis at Activision Blizzard that was revealed by a lawsuit filed by the state of California alleging a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture” with “constant sexual harassment” of its female employees.

While Shadowlands is coming to an end soon, fans are looking for clues as to where the next expansion might be heading. We do know that this is likely the last we see of the Jailer; Blizzard has stated we will bring a “definitive end” to all of his schemes.