Blizzard to host new World of Warcraft Shadowlands update livestream on July 8

Following social unrest in the U.S. after the murder of George Floyd last month, Blizzard postponed a scheduled livestream by developers meant to update gamers on the status of World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion, Shadowlands.

But now, the developer is telling fans that they can expect to catch the newly-scheduled update stream on July 8, about one week after it was originally supposed to happen.

The official WoW Twitter account said today that fans can catch the WoW dev team’s top execs, executive producer John Hight and game director Ion Hazzikostas, on both Twitch and YouTube starting at 11am CT on July 8 for updates about Shadowlands. 

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced employees across the country to work from home, including those at Blizzard, there was concern that titles and gaming platforms set to release this year wouldn’t be available when they were originally intended to. But since the beginning of the pandemic, Blizzard and Hazzikostas have held firm that they intend to get Shadowlands to WoW players before the end of 2020.

In addition to starting alpha testing for the game in the middle of the U.S. state of emergency that’s forced numerous social distancing guidelines, Hazzikostas has personally done Q&As on various Twitch streams to give updates. Every step of the way, Hazzikostas has held firm that the company is still on track to release Shadowlands by the end of the year. 

While there’s no indication exactly what Hight and Hazzikostas will talk about in their update, the Shadowlands alpha test has been live since April 9. Assuming that the developer plans to push the game live before 2021, there’s a reasonable chance that the two execs might have some information prepared for fans regarding expanded beta testing—or even what month the game will be released.