It is my duty to observe the strands of fate. The wondrous possibilities that the Purpose lays before us.
Fate flows around you, mortal. It shifts. It changes. But I have stilled its movements to offer you... a choice.
You may journey through the Shadowlands in the same manner as those who came before you have done.
Or you may choose a different path. One that lets you forge a bond with a covenant now, and move freely through the realms of Death to forge your own destiny.
What say you, mortal?
The Threads of Fate
Level up by doing world quests, side quests, bonus objectives, and dungeons.
Main storyline quests will be skipped and you will choose your covenant immediately.
You will have access to all Shadowlands zones except the Maw.
This choice is final and cannot be undone.
Replay Storyline
Level up by playing through the main Shadowlands storyline, just as you did on your first character.
You will move zone by zone through the narrative arc before reaching level 60 and selecting a covenant.
If you change your mind, you can return to the Fatescribe at any time to choose to follow the Threads of Fate.
Blizzard
Alt Leveling
As we first announced at BlizzCon last year, while everyone’s first trip through the Shadowlands is driven by a linear narrative campaign that grants access to endgame features such as covenants, world quests, and more, we want to offer players who are leveling alts a much more flexible experience. We have had a version of that experience available in Beta for the past few weeks, as alts select their covenant immediately upon first arriving in Oribos, and then can tackle the four zones in any order they choose.
However, we’ve received a couple of points of feedback that have led us to refine this approach: First, a number of testers felt like they weren’t necessarily ready to pick a covenant right away on a new class, and wished they could replay the narrative arc that let them “test drive” each of the active abilities along the way. Second, even for players who were familiar with the overall story by that point, it felt confusing or wrong to play through portions of some zone campaigns out of order or while already a member of a covenant (e.g. doing the main Revendreth arc while already being a member of Renethal’s venthyr).
In this week’s build, alts emerging from the Maw for the first time will be met in Oribos by the mysterious Fatescribe, who now offers an explicit choice between replaying the narrative arc as first-time characters experienced it, or following the threads of fate to their inevitable conclusion and beginning the journey at a point following the climactic events at the end of Revendreth’s story. Characters choosing the latter option will enter the Shadowlands in a state where the entire narrative Campaign has already been completed, with new Bonus Objectives available in locations that were previously central to the Campaign. Lucrative zone-wide objectives for each of the four zones will provide additional structure while allowing alts to roam the Shadowlands as they prefer, earning gear and experience through their choice of a zone’s side quests, bonus objectives, world quests, dungeons, or rares and treasures.
Our goal with this alt experience remains offering more flexibility than ever before on repeat playthroughs, while also allowing alts to begin making progress towards their endgame goals, earning Anima for their covenant’s reservoir or catching up on Renown so that they can hit the ground running when they reach 60. We look forward to hearing feedback on how the new experience feels!