The first major content update for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is called Chains of Domination and includes: a new 10-boss raid in the upper part of Torghast Tower; new dungeons, locations to explore, and exciting features that improve loot drops and player accessibility; and plenty more as the Covenants prepare for an assault against the Jailer in The Maw. World of Warcraft fans will finally have a chance to face Sylvanas Windrunner in a fight that has been built up for many years, as well as tackle new challenges like the interdimensional heist in Tazavesh, the Veiled Market and helping their covenant work with the others to encroach on The Jailer's domain of The Maw.
In addition to the major updates like the locations, fights, dungeons, and raids, players can also expect smaller features in the Chains of Domination update, including new Covenant rewards, improvements to and a new wing in Torghast, the ability to unlock flying in The Maw, and changes to make Raid loot feel more rewarding and worthwhile. Because the Sanctum of Domination raid won't officially launch until next week, players can experience all these new features first before taking on the ten powerful bosses and minions of the Jailer.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands' Chains of Domination update builds upon the lore and gameplay established when the expansion first launched. Though there haven't been many developer updates since the patch was announced at BlizzCon, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Technical Director Frank Kowalkowski and Senior Game Designer Johnny Cash recently sat down with Screen Rant to discuss the update in greater detail and share more about the challenges and triumphs they experienced while working on the Chains of Domination update and what players can expect from the 9.1 launch.
I think the last time I had a chance to talk about Shadowlands, and specifically Chains of Domination, was at BlizzCon. What can players expect from this new patch? Have things changed?
Frank Kowalkowski: We've clarified a few more things that we knew we were going to be developing. Like, we settled on the Mythic+ FX, for instance, and we've made a few other changes to Mythic+. We fleshed out a little bit of the loot system now in the Sanctum of Domination. So, we've managed to answer some of the questions of the development that we were still noodling over when we did BlizzCon.
Johnny Cash: Yeah. When we last chatted, things were a little bit earlier on. And since then, as players may have seen on PTR, there's been just a ton going on in development: fleshing out Korthia, which is the new area of players can explore; finishing out the raid of the Sanctum of Domination, delving into Tazavesh for the mythic dungeon experience, and then all the different systems that interconnect all those things and help guide players from thing to thing. Finishing out our stories, getting all the bells and whistles on there, getting the cinematics in place - some of which players haven't seen yet, so we're really excited for that.
We had some of the basic brushstrokes of what we're looking for, and then over the past months, we've been iterating on that and cleaning everything up. And I think as things have really come together, it's gonna be a really exciting patch. I think people are really, really excited.
It sounds like the buzz from the community is generally positive, so I'm very much looking forward to this one. Just based on the cinematics and the trailers, Chains of Domination is going to have all four covenants working together to fight the Jailer. Can you talk about the decision to bring the factions together, and how that might affect the story from this point forward?
Johnny Cash: Yeah. In the initial Shadowlands release, we wanted players to make that important choice. Shadowlands is an expansion that focuses a lot on player choice and player agency, so we were giving players those different power options and letting them explore a specific storyline a little more deeply than they might be able to otherwise. And now that we've kind of played that out and looked at how that felt with people, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to look at what's the next step in the story.
We've kind of set the stakes, but now the Jailer needs to start playing his hand a little bit. And that seemed like the natural time that these stories are going to come together, as the covenants are trying to bring their forces to bear. Since we've been working to replenish the covenants and make them strong again. Now, we can all come together and try to take the fight to the Jailer. You'll see that the story chapters, for sure, where we'll follow up on some of the threads that we started in Shadowlands. You can see a little bit more of what Uthr has been up to, or pay off some of those important story threads.
But there's also some new things that we can only really do now that the covenants are together. Even outside of the story, you can see that in things like the covenant assaults. Even though you might be a Night Fae, you can still help the Kyrian- and maybe with some Maldraxxi reinforcing them, really bring the fight to the Jailer's forces there. Then they're going to push back, and you'll see some of the Jailer's lieutenants come out in one of the Tormentors of Torghast events that can pop up. And you'll see him bringing out some of their big guns for us to contend with.
There's a vibe of this push and pull, whereas initially, it was a little bit scarier. There was no hub, there was no town. It was really just you, and maybe some other adventures fighting under this imposing Torghast. Now, it's more even footing, but also both sides have ramped up a whole bunch. There's a lot more of an all-out war vibe going on, as opposed to trying to sneak around. And that makes everything feel contextually very different. As you work your way through and eventually get into the Sanctum of Domination raid, then you can really see where Kel'Thuzad went after the Maldraxxus campaign if you're one of the players that saw that play out a bit.
You can see where all those stories have gone. Which is really cool, because even if you're a Kyrian, you can still catch up on that story and see where it goes. And that's really exciting.
As far as the cinematics go, it's gonna be a much larger scale than the rest of Shadowlands has been so far. And that's been pretty big anyway, so this is definitely an exciting time to be a WoW player. Could you tell us a little bit more about the Sanctum of Domination and Tazavesh raids? I know those are major features to the patch.
Frank Kowalkowski: Sure. The Sanctum of Domination is the brand new 10-boss raid with Sylvanas, who we've been building up for a few years now, at the top of it. You're going to get to finally face off, but along the way you're going to meet a lot of the Jailer's tenants. You're going to get to fight in unique places rather than a balcony overlooking The Maw, though it'll feel confined when you're around The Tarragrue space to try and deal with that monstrosity.
And as John mentioned, you're going to get to see Kel'Thuzad and what he's been up to, and how he's customized his own personal spot at the Sanctum of Domination. Then there's Tazavesh, which is the veiled market where the brokers hang out. It's this market inside of the In-Between, and it's going to delve a little bit deeper into who the brokers are, and how they get all these unique things that they seem to want to sell to the denizens of the Shadowlands. So, it's going to be very interesting ride through there, complete with a heist component to it that players are going to be able to see through to the end.
It's fun, it's cool, and you get to fight a pirate dragon. What more could you want?
Johnny Cash: We call the new area, Korthia, the city of secrets. There's all sorts of things lurking about that the attendants wanted to hide from people like the Jailer for, hopefully, forever. Obviously, that's not coming to pass because we're here. But we tried to make that evident in all of the systems, so even while you're in Tazavesh, there are some hard modes lurking about that players can uncover how to activate for some extra rewards.
Or in the Sanctum of Domination, you'll start to see gear with domination sockets on it, which are these special sockets where you can put blood unholy or frost gems into it. If you match three of them, like you get three blood runes in your gear, you get these special mini-set bonuses that only work in the Sanctum Domination raid to make that experience even stronger.
So, as you keep delving into the dungeon or the raid, or whatever you're choosing to do - there's all these layers of extra things you can uncover over time that keep making you wonder, "What's over here? How does this work if I try it this way?" There's all these layers that start really cool, but they just get better the longer you spend in them.
You mentioned a lot that has to do with the Death Knight. Do you recommend having a character that is primarily a Death Knight?
Johnny Cash: I think Death Knights are super fun, so in that sense, I think a lot of people like playing alts and seeing a different perspective. I totally recommend it in that sense. But no, you don't need to play a Death Knight to get the full Chains of Domination experience. We always look for opportunities for references or Easter eggs. Like, certain players with certain standings in the past will have little lines that play or special little moments here and there. Because people invest a lot of time into their characters, and we want to pay that off. So, we always look for cool stuff like that.
But you're not gonna feel like you missed out if you don't play a DK specifically.
As far as the gear that comes from these raids, could you talk about the new leveling system? PvP adjustments to gear leveling were mentioned before. Could you explain how those will work?
Johnny Cash: One aspect there is that there's some new Legendaries to pursue, and players can continue to upgrade existing Legendaries or even recraft Legendaries. You know, if you want to change the slot or update what stats you're using - that kind of thing. And there'll be a new super Soul Ash you can get as you keep delving into Torghast that will help you do that.
And, obviously, Tazavesh and the Sanctum of Domination will give you gear, and you can do the hard modes or harder difficulties to get even more items there.
Frank Kowalkowski: If you're talking specifically about the new rating that we've added to the Mythic+ system, that's probably the biggest change to leveling.
Johnny Cash: That's also true. We found that a lot of players, when they're doing a Mythic+ group together, want to play with somebody that has a similar goal as them and are at kind of a similar skill level as them. So that they all have a good time together. We found that a lot of players were using similar add-ons to kind of do that experience, but not everybody was. So, there were players that felt like they couldn't get a group as easily as they wanted to, or they wanted to find people like them to play with.
We took inspiration from these things that players were already doing and said, "Okay, can we make that experience better for people? Can we help players understand and find people to play with?" The goal here is, as you do Mythic+ naturally the way that you want to - whether that's running a wide variety of different keys, or trying to push really hard on a specific one to get the highest one you can - you're going to increase your rating. You can find people that play like you and play together, and you'll get increased rewards for doing that.
In that sense, we want to encourage people and reward people for doing the things they already wanted to do. And that's really the main thrust of it.
Frank Kowalkowski: Yeah, and Valor is still there. Valor is still going to be a means for you to upgrade the gear that you earn through Mythic+. And one of the nicer aspects or cooler aspects of the rating system is that if anybody in the dungeon increases the rating as a result of that run, everybody gets a little bit of extra Valor. So, there's an incentive there not just for your group to keep pushing, but also maybe to play with friends and help them push. Everyone benefits.
As far as Valor goes, have there been any changes to that system? Or does it still operate the same as it always has?
Frank Kowalkowski: Well, I just mentioned one change: there's a way to get a little bit of extra Valor per run by helping people increase the rating. But actually, we were pretty happy with the way this turned out, and we're happy with player reaction. There might be a few tweaks here and there but, more or less, we're pretty happy.
Apart from the new raids, are there other little surprises or exciting features players can expect that you're able to talk about now?
Frank Kowalkowski: Man, there's a lot to do in Chains of Domination. No matter what kind of player you are for World of Warcraft, there's something in Chains of Domination. We haven't talked a lot about PvP: there's new PvP talents, there's a new PvP season coming. Some of those talents are fun, like you can be a mage and actually throw up a wall of ice, or be a warlock that spawns out portals to suck your enemies into the disadvantageous locations. There's going to be a lot of fun things that you can do there.
If you're a collector, there are tons of new mounts and pets that you can chase. And then there's all the things we've already mentioned: there's a brand new mega dungeon with Tazavesh; there's a whole lot to explore. We think there's a lot there for people who love World of Warcraft, no matter which flavor of World of Warcraft they love to play.
Johnny Cash: There's also some really cool new stuff coming to Torghast. The major theme of Chains of Domination overall is bringing the fight to the Jailer. The focus is on the raid in the upper reaches of Torghast, and we're fighting all around it and the base of it. But there's also a lot of cool stuff happening within the halls of Torghast. So, there's some new areas to explore that are super cool, as well as some new layers of difficulty that players can uncover.
But we've also really been listening to feedback in the community, of the sorts of things that they're looking for on their Torghast runs. One thing that we're doing now is a meta progression within the system that players can dive down, and whether you've done Torghast a whole bunch or you did it at first and thought it wasn't for you but want to try it again, there's a lot of really cool stuff here. As you progress, you get a rating on a run, and that gives you a currency you can then spend at this mysterious box - called the box of many things. It has this progression tree that unlocks buffs for you or debuffs for your enemies or new things that you can do that you couldn't do before in the Tower. And that helps you do even better on those runs.
Even while you're within a specific run, you're building up this on-fire bar, so to speak. You're filling up this bar as you're killing enemies; as you're moving through in an efficient way. And once you fill it up, you unlock this super powerful button that grants you this window of a super strong class cooldown. You can save that up for a difficult pull or that big boss at the end, or that kind of thing. That and mixing up the powers a little bit here and there - as we've been looking at the options, there's a lot.
Even if you've run Torghast the whole bunch, you can now do it and there's new things uncover and new options to unlock. It ends up feeling like a really fresh experience for people.
Those buffs and debuffs that players can purchase only work inside the Tower. Is that correct?
Johnny Cash: Yeah, that's one of my favorite things about Torghast as a designer. Since it's this encapsulated system, we can break a lot of the rules that normally could cause cascading complexities in the outdoor world. But we can give you incredible ramping power or have enemies do things that would slaughter you without your own buffs on your side, but you can kill them when they're stronger, and all that kind of thing. It just becomes this entirely different way of playing the game.
I noticed that you did some PTR. Were there any comments or any feedback from the community that you were able to implement into the final patch?
Johnny Cash: Yeah, of course. The PTR is an invaluable tool for us to help get a gauge of where things are, and where we can spend our remaining time to make things even stronger. There's always the normal gamut of balancing raid bosses and helping tune class abilities, just so they feel just right.
But one of the things specifically for Chains of Domination is in the outdoor world. As we were playing through and listening to what people are saying, we felt like there was an opportunity to create another layer of things to do while players are in Korthia. It's something else that can give people more rewards and all that kind of thing. We ended up creating the system called The Archivist's Codex, and you'll be introduced to it naturally. As you're doing activities, you'll uncover an item that leads you back to the hub, and it kind of goes from there.
It reinforces the self-contained progression system. It's really themed around uncovering secrets and finding these relics out in Korthia, bringing them back, researching them, cataloging them, and then getting bonuses and buffs and things as a result of that. And you end up participating this naturally as you're doing other things; as you're doing the visitor dailies, or you're underway to a covenant assault, you might see a special portal that requires a thing that you need to research how to craft. Maybe you do, and you go into this portal - and while you're in there, you see this giant devourer that was hidden from plain sight the entire time. You use this item to pull them out back into normal Korthia, and now everybody around you can jump on it with you and fight it, and you all get loot.
Stuff like this is cool and unexpected; you didn't even know this boss was there until you started exploring the Codex. I think that's one of the things I'm really excited about. It's just this other cool layer on top of all the stuff you're already going to be doing. There's all these little secrets lurking underneath every rock, or around this corner, and that just results in even more content that players can do.
What has been your favorite part about developing Chains of Domination? Do you have a favorite feature or something that you really enjoyed working on?
Frank Kowalkowski: Wow, that's always a tough one, because I love World of Warcraft. It's my favorite game, so I spend a lot of time on it wherever I can.
This goes back to that question about feedback, but one of the features that the technology team worked on for a Chains of Domination was text-to-speech and speech-to-text. One of the pillars of the engineering team has always been inclusivity and accessibility, whether it is "Let's make sure we give players enough customization options and get as many people in that can play World of Warcraft as possible."
This was an opportunity for us to address a different kind of accessibility, and the response we got from people has been absolutely amazing about how transformative it is to be able to speak and type in your chat and vice versa. It's opened doors to a lot of people to be able to communicate in ways that they couldn't before, and watching the response of those people has probably been my favorite part of this content update.
Johnny Cash: That really is super cool, and I love that too. I think it we're doing it for English at first, but some people want to use a different voice than the one that they might normally use to talk to their friends. So, you can do a robotic voice - is that a fair way to describe it, Frank? You can disguise your voice as something else, for people that might want to for one reason or another. They can feel comfortable and still engage in voice chat and run those experiences; maybe join a Sanctum of Domination pickup group, where maybe before you weren't comfortable and maybe now you are. And we think that's amazing. That's super cool.
We did some case studies and some interviews with people that were hard of hearing, or these different things, and it was this eye-opening and tear-jerking moment to see the joy spread across this one guy's face as he was able to hear the text read to him that he could never see before. And he was still playing World of Warcraft; he was finding a way. But now there are all these new parts of the game that were previously unavailable to him that he could enjoy for the first time, and it was overwhelmingly heartwarming. It's hard to describe accurately.
That's fantastic. You said it's English-supported right now. Are there plans to add some translations to broaden the audience even further?
Frank Kowalkowski: We're looking at and listening to feedback for future content updates, yes.
Have there been any major challenges with developing the Chains of Domination update? Things that you were able to overcome, or maybe that you weren't?
Johnny Cash: Sure, yeah. Every single release has its own set of challenges, which is one of the things I honestly love about being a designer on this project. There's always something different; even though I'm telling stories and building quests, there's always a new challenge.
I think one of the interesting challenges this time around was that we had players make this very pivotal choice of what covenant do you want to be. In having everything come together, we still want to honor that choice. That's still important; that you feel like, "I am a Curian Paladin," or "I am a Necrolord Death Knight," or what have you. That's still important to us. But how do we also have this coming together moment, where you're taking the fight to the Jailer and working across the aisle to other covenants that maybe your character isn't a member of?
Even from the very earliest moments, those were some of my favorite collaborative moments of ever been on the team: brainstorming that challenge. How do we sell that, and how do we find a way to make that as cool as possible? I remember we were talking about what would eventually become covenant assaults. And somebody had this idea while brainstorming... Somebody said, "Can we just bring in the Zerekriss?" Which is that giant acropolis that's above Maldraxxus. Like, "Could it just come into The Maw and just bombard stuff with Necrolord magic and full-on insanity? Maybe it's really big."
We tried it, and it was amazing and awesome and very imposing in a cool, epic way. We decided to keep it, and as we learned more about what the covenant assaults were, we kept growing these ideas about how can we do something that you couldn't do in Shadowlands. But now, narratively, it was possible. Now we could sell it.
So, I think that was some of the fun stuff: just looking at it as these challenges to create cool new things that we hadn't done before. And I think that led to creativity that we may not have had otherwise. It's super satisfying.
Frank Kowalkowski: Engineers love things we've never done before, we really do. We love when the designers are like, "Can we get 1000 creatures attacking this thing?" We're looking for ways that we can do this; that we can collaborate on this. Can we fight on this balcony overlooking The Maw? What are all the things that we can do, and then coming together and helping to get the technology to match as close as possible to the vision.
It's a challenge, and I think it pays off in the end. We get as close as we can to those visions. They're challenges we accept, and ones we love to overcome.
Johnny Cash: I know we said earlier that Torghast is a self-contained thing. But the Sanctum of Domination raid is in Torghast, right? It's just kind of the upper parts of the tower. Somebody had asked early on, "Can we give players Torghast powers in the raid?" At first everyone was like, "No, we can't balance a raid boss around that. It'd be impossible." Then it's like, "But what if we did? Maybe they're a little different, you know?"
You really have to try The Tarragrue fight, which is the perfect way to encapsulate the Tower experience. You can get these different versions of Torghast powers as different phases the fight go on, so you feel like you're breaking the rules and cheating because you're using Torghast powers in a raid environment, which normally would super not be a thing - like, something went horribly wrong. But it's intended, so you get super overpowered and the boss is super overpowered - and it's just incredibly epic. I love it.
Do you guys have any advice for players who are going to hop into the new content on June 29? Any surprises they should be looking out for or any last exciting things?
Frank Kowalkowski: My advice would be to try a little bit of everything. There's a big menu there, and it can look overwhelming, but you're gonna have time to get through all of it. And it is all rewarding. Like I said, there's something there no matter what flavor of World of Warcraft you like. Feel free to just jump in and immediately begin your Mythic+ runs on day one. Feel free to jump in an arena. You're gonna find something new, and you're gonna find something exciting. I encourage you to explore it all.
Johnny Cash: Yeah, I really encourage players. This is a great opportunity just to see where the game takes you, and maybe try something new. There's lots of great catch-up mechanics, if you want to try a different name. That's a common enough thing in patches, if you just want to see how a different healer feels.
We really updated the flow, so it's really easy to get straight to Korthia. Even on a character that just hit 60, it's only a little bit of questing before you're straight in the mix with everybody else. So, if you want to mix things up or dive in with a group you hadn't before, or just see what's over around the corner over there - Korthia is a great place to check under those rocks. Just like Frank said, I think you'll always be pleasantly surprised about what you find.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is available now for PC and Mac OS. Patch 9.1, Chains of Domination, released today, June 29, 2021.