World of Warcraft: Half As Many Players are Raiding Since Shadowlands Release

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has been out for a year now, and with its anniversary, many players are looking back to the tumultuous year Blizzard has experienced, both in and out of game. Bellular, independent game developer and World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy content creator, broke down the metrics of how many people have been playing endgame content in WoW recently and found some trends that could spell doom for the MMO giant.To get more news about Buy WoW WLK EU Gold, you can visit lootwowgold official website.

The first raid in Shadowlands, Castle Nathria, actually had more people clear its first boss than any other raid since the Legion expansion in 2016. However, over the course of World of Warcraft Patch 9.0’s extended run, less than half of these players cleared the Heroic raid in its entirety.
Meanwhile, the Sanctum of Domination raid, which launched in early July, has had an even worse turnout. Less than half as many players have started the Heroic raid, and less than half of them have cleared it, with lower clear numbers than any in the last three expansion cycles. While this number could still rise before the next and final raid tier of Shadowlands releases with Eternity's End, it will be unlikely to change this data significantly.

The “Ahead of the Curve” achievement in World of Warcraft is given to any player who clears the entirety of a raid before a new one is released in subsequent patches. It serves as an adequate measurement tool when applied to WoW's Heroic raids, which act as the middle difficulty between LFR and Mythic difficulties. In Legion and Battle for Azeroth, an average of 57% of guilds who participate in Heroic raids acquire the “Ahead of the Curve” achievement. In Shadowlands, only about 40% have it.

Though raid difficulty certainly affects these numbers, there are other factors at play. Shadowlands has been awash with myriad troubles since its launch, from delayed release schedules due to the COVID-19 pandemic to baffling systems and story decisions. To make matters worse, Activision Blizzard has been under fire due to allegations of sexual harasment and discrimination all the way to the top, with CEO Bobby Kotick recently being revealed as complicit.

It isn’t hard to see why players have grown disillusioned with World of Warcraft. Some players have left to boycott the company for real life issues, others for its poor support and game systems. Bellular went on to examine other aspects of WoW too, like Mythic dungeon clears and subscription numbers, all of which came to the same conclusion: World of Warcraft is in trouble.

Though Blizzard has taken steps to begin listening to its community and employees, like the formation of the WoW Community Council and efforts to remove inappropriate content in-game, every step forward is met with more steps back. Unless the company can follow through on its promises and cut away the corruption among its leadership, World of Warcraft may continue to die a slow death.