World of Warcraft: Shadowlands' next big update, Chains of Domination, revealed

World of Warcraft's next big update was just announced during BlizzCon 2021, though we all knew it was coming because Blizzard accidentally leaked it on Thursday. The announcement, though, confirms that Patch 9.1: Chains of Domination is a big'un that includes a new raid, a new mega-dungeon, new areas to explore in the Maw, and lots more. If you want to read an in-depth interview about it, head here.

Perhaps the most important thing, though, is how Chains of Domination is pushing Warcraft's story into some dark and exciting frontiers. The trailer for Chains of Domination is actually a cinematic cutscene that continues from the cliffhanger that left players worrying about Anduin's fate and what Sylvanas and her mysterious benefactor, The Jailer, had planned for him. We'll embed the trailer above as soon as it's available, but the gist of it is pretty grim: Anduin has now been made a thrall of the Jailer and is on a murderous rampage through the Shadowlands. Instead of wearing golden armor and looking like a very good boy who always says his prayers at night, he's now looking like he brushes his teeth with maggots and listens to Slayer. It's a cool transformation.

In addition to a new 10-boss raid, a new 8-boss mega-dungeon, and a new area of the Maw to explore, Chains of Domination will also improve the Covenant system and give players more ways to power up their Soulbinds and earn cool cosmetic armor sets themed after their Covenant.

We have a much deeper dive on Chains of Domination that you can read here.

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.