Asmongold calls WoW Shadowlands & Naxxramas release dates “huge mistake”

Bill Cooney
Asmongold Shadowlands

Asmongold is one of the most popular World of Warcraft streamers on Twitch and while he’s looking forward to Shadowlands and Naxxramas, having them both come out within a few weeks of each other is a “huge mistake.”

Shadowlands is the newest expansion for Blizzard’s world-famous MMO, and we finally know now that Blizzard has it set to come out on November 23.

The Naxxramas raid is the latest content being added to WoW Classic on December 3, and it might be the most highly anticipated of all the reboot’s patches since the area has been unavailable following its destruction in the main game during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in 2008.

While we’re definitely looking forward to both, the release dates are less than two weeks apart, which could end up killing the hype for the return of the classic content, according to Asmon.

Not only are they both coming out around the same time but the first raid for Shadowlands, called Castle Nathria, will go live on December 8, just five days after Naxx opens up.

“If Naxxramas is released in the middle of Shadowlands and the raid for Shadowlands, I’m worried the excitement is going to be buried in a way that it shouldn’t be,” the streamer explained. “It’s something people have been looking forward to for a long time.”

Instead, Asmon suggested Blizzard “leapfrog” Classic and Retail content to have updates for one happen during the other’s lull period, after everyone’s already experienced the new dungeons, got new gear, and all of that good stuff.

“I think that would give enough time for the Shadowlands content to run its course,” he suggested. “For the most part at about a month after Shadowlands, most people are going to put the expansion on maintenance mode and they’ll be looking forward to the next new thing, and why can’t that next new thing be Naxxramas?”

WoW Classic Naxxramas Patch Notes
Kel’Thuzad was the final boss in the original Naxxramas raid.

While a lot of players prefer either Retail or Classic there are plenty that like to play both as well, and having the releases so close together makes it so they’ll have to choose one or the other.

“I don’t really see the purpose and I don’t see the benefit of making them choose, why make them choose between getting excited over one game or another?” Asmon pointed out. “Why not spread out that excitement people are going to have for the game and make people excited for Retail, then make them excited for Classic, rather than make your own two hype periods compete with each other?”

As of yet, Blizzard still seems set on the announced release dates but they have listened to the streamer’s suggestions on Shadowlands earlier in the summer when changes he brought forward actually made it into an update for the Torghast dungeon.

Whether or not devs will listen this time around remains to be seen, but having both games work together instead of competing for attention does seem like it could make both much more successful.

About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.