Blizzard Temporarily Makes WoW: Shadowlands Free

Well, I must say this bit of news came as a rather significant surprise to me. Upon refreshing my Facebook news feed this past Monday morning, I was greeted with a “blue post” from Blizzard Entertainment on the official World of Warcraft blog. Announcing that from now until Monday, September 5th, 2022, certain groups of inactive WoW players can acquire the Base Edition of the Shadowlands expansion and a level 50 character boost for free.

To quote Blizzard directly, “All Battle.net accounts that do not currently have the Shadowlands expansion attached and that had any expansion license attached to the account in the past will receive the Shadowlands Base Edition and a level 50 character boost FREE (no purchase necessary).” With that established, there are still a couple of things I see necessary to clarify. Allow me to elaborate.

First things first, your eligibility for this gift considers the status of your Battle.net account as a whole rather than that of any individual World of Warcraft accounts you may have attached to it. That is, even if you have a second WoW account tied to your Battle.net account that doesn’t have access to Shadowlands, but you do own the expansion on your primary account, you’re still ineligible to claim the free copy on the account that doesn’t have it. I guess that means I won’t be upgrading my three long-dormant Battle for Azeroth accounts anytime soon.

Secondly, this giveaway specifically pertains to the Base Edition of Shadowlands. For those unaware, Blizzard typically creates multiple tiered “editions” of each WoW expansion, with each tier offering more goodies than the one below it. The Base Edition is only enough to grant you access to the current expansion’s content without unlocking any of the additional bonuses like mounts.

Though, once you own the Base Edition of Shadowlands, you can always purchase an upgrade to either the Heroic Edition or Epic Edition at some point down the line if you decide you want any of that extra stuff. Moreover, upgrades to the higher tiers of most recent expansions are likely to be discounted during many of Blizzard’s occasional sale events. Since you can get the expansion by itself for free at the moment anyway, I see no harm in trying it out and waiting for just such a sale if you end up desiring an upgrade.

Thirdly, you unfortunately still have to purchase your own game time if you want to try out Shadowlands after claiming your gifted copy. Blizzard may be throwing players a bone by giving them the expansion and a high-level character boost (which ordinarily cost $60), but I guess they still have to make all that subscription money. Then again, considering the cost of everything you’re getting here on its own, perhaps having to shell out $14.99 in return isn’t too shabby of a deal.

I’m quite curious to know what your thoughts are on this unexpected promotion. Personally, I think it’s primarily spurred on by Blizzard trying to drum up hype for the upcoming Dragonflight expansion, which may or may not be releasing in late November. Nonetheless, on the same token, I can’t help but detect the slightest twinge of what may be desperation. I suspect it might be Blizzard saying, “Hey, here’s Shadowlands and a free character boost, please come back to the game!” As I said, though, I wish to leave today’s final word to you. Do feel free to sound off in the comments!