Gaming: World of Warcraft unveils Shadowlands; Terminator: Resistance gameplay & more

A battle with Azeroth’s afterlife is raging, and Blizzard is taking us along for the fiery ride. The World of Warcraft developer has just taken the wraps off its next major installment in the WoW universe, revealing Shadowlands as its upcoming expansion for the MMORPG classic. 

Shadowlands was unveiled at last week’s BlizzCon with a 10-minute cinematic trailer that returns some recognizable characters to the series. We haven’t seen this much of Bolvar Fordragon since 2008’s Wrath of the Lich King, but he gets the spotlight here as the bearer of the Lich King’s helm of domination — although Sylvanas Windrunner, the main antagonist of Battle for Azeroth, definitely has other plans for the magic crown.

Check out the epic cinematic trailer for Shadowlands below (and try not to pick up on some serious Game of Thrones Night King vibes):

Poor Bolvar can’t catch a break, right? By shattering the barrier between the living and the dead, Sylvanas shows she’s set on reshaping the fabric of Azeroth’s spirit world — and that can’t be a good thing, right? Blizzard says Shadowlands players will be able to pledge allegiance to one of the undead realm’s four covenants, led by “otherworldly shepherds of the dead, each with their own ambitions, motives, and incredible powers to claim as your own.” Also new is a “highly replayable” new dungeon called Torghast, Tower of the Damned — an “ever-changing dungeon in the dark heart of the Maw, where the vilest souls are locked away forever.”

Blizzard hasn’t yet given Shadowlands a firm release date, but it’s expected to arrive for PC and Mac sometime next year. 

---

Terminator: Dark Fate may be lighting up the big screen, but it’s not the only way to walk through James Cameron’s dystopian future this year. Publisher Reef Entertainment recently hit fans with a pair of new trailers for Terminator: Resistance, along with a minor adjustment for the upcoming game’s U.S. release date. 

The cinematics and the gameplay look right at home alongside their older movie siblings in the two new clips, which you can check out below:

North American players originally expected to get their hands on Resistance on Dec. 3, but according to the new clips' YouTube description, Reef is pushing the game’s release back — but only by a week. Featuring an all-new story set three decades after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Resistance debuts on Dec. 10 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

---

After one of the longest sequel buildups in gaming history, Shenmue III still won’t be here for another couple of weeks — but already director Yu Suzuki is looking to keep the classic series going beyond the current console generation. 

In a recent interview at the PlayStation Blog, Suzuki said that Shenmue III won't be the end of Ryo’s saga when the hugely anticipated, Kickstarter-backed continuation of the Sega Dreamcast series arrives this month. “The series will not end with Shenmue III,” he said. “Rushing to tie up the plot here would have made for a flat game. And I hope to continue the series as long as people are interested.”

Any built-in pressure to deliver a conclusion to Ryo’s story evidently dissipated as Suzuki and the development team at Ys Net worked on Shenmue III — the first new game in the series in 18 years — with Suzuki suggesting that players pace themselves and take their time with the upcoming game, since there’ll (hopefully) be plenty more to come. 

“It would be nice if players felt like coming back from a journey,” he said. “If you hurry through the game, there is a good chance it will just stress you out.”

At least the near two-decade wait for a sequel that most Dreamcast players never thought they’d see is almost over. We’ll try to take Suzuki’s advice and savor the moment when Shenmue III debuts, at long last, for PlayStation 4 and PC on Nov. 19.