Blizzard postpones World of Warcraft Shadowlands reveal livestream

Activision Blizzard has officially hit the pause button on the World of Warcraft Shadowlands hype train. The publishers have confirmed the eighth expansion’s reveal stream, originally set to air June 9, has been indefinitely postponed.

The entire World of Warcraft community has been holding its breath for the upcoming Shadowlands reveal stream. Blizzard’s ‘tell-all’ broadcast was meant to finally lift the lid on what is coming in the MMORPG’s next flagship expansion. Instead, the wait now goes on, for now at least.

The World of Warcraft publishers confirmed the planned Shadowlands stream had officially been pushed back due to ongoing protests in the United States.

“We are postponing our upcoming Shadowlands stream planned for June 9,” the studio confirmed in a tweet over the weekend. “More important voices than ours need to be heard, and now is the time to listen.”

• Read more: Everything we know about World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

Blizzard promised “more details… in the future,” but did not confirm a new date. It’s likely, however, that the wait won’t be long. Activision’s other flagship franchises like Call of Duty have only held back their expansion releases by around a week.

Shadowlands joins Call of Duty and Fortnite in official delays

World of Warcraft’s expansion reveal delay comes after a slate of other game releases and streams were also postponed. These widespread delays in the past week have been related to the Black Lives Matter movement in America.

• Read more: Shadowlands may be “greatest expansion ever”: Asmongold

Perhaps the most high-profile delays came in Call of Duty and Fortnite. The former was set to drop the next Modern Warfare & Warzone season on June 3, but Activision pulled the pin at the last moment.

Epic made a similar call just days later, scrubbing their Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3 release date and shifting it to June 17. EA’s huge FIFA 21 unveiling, originally set for June 5, has also been pushed back to June 18, according to sources.

Activision Blizzard’s choice to delay the Shadowlands stream comes just months after the studio made the “very difficult decision” to cancel BlizzCon 2020’s live event. The June 9 stream was supposed to replace that now-canned Shadowlands panel, and act as the official reveal event.

Blizzard dev Ion Hazzikostas and executive producer John Hight are still expected to helm the WoW reveal event. Team 2 will likely unveil the remaining details and goodies set to be included in Shadowlands at launch.