As things started to come together from MacMillanwu's blog

In a blog post , which announced the delay the executive producer John Hight said it wasn't an easy decision to make however it was necessary in the context of the expansion and WoTLK Classic Gold players. Hight added that the extra development time will allow the team to apply some polished features to Shadowlands its final game. In general, a pre-patch occurs about a month ahead of when an expansion is released. This wasn't the case yet and some players believe that the release date was being delayed further back, before it became official.

"As things started to come together and we've spent time listening to and building on your feedback and suggestions, it's becoming clear that we need a little more time to finish the polishing process, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking components, especially those in relation to the endgame" Hight said. "Shadowlands is among the most intricate expansions that we've developed to date. And while we've made significant improvements, the process of tuning the endgame was further complicated by our team working at home.

"Blizzard is committed to quality. We are convinced that Shadowlands is going to be something unique We've heard from many of you who feel the similar. This extra time is needed to make sure that Shadowlands performs to its full potential."

Despite the setbacks, the studio still plans to release the Shadowlands Pre-Patch on October 13. This update is the bare-metal foundation for the expansion, complete with a redesigned character leveling system with WoTLK Gold, an entirely new experience for players in Exile's Reach as well as a myriad of new character customization options.