WoW: Shadowlands And Level-50 Character Boost Are Free Until September 5

Lapsed World of Warcraft players can claim the game's current Shadowlands expansion, and a level-50 character boost, for free now until September 5.

The level-50 boost will make it so new characters can jump into the beginning of Shadowlands without needing to level through older content. That's a pretty good deal considering the expansion is normally $40 on its own, with players usually needing to spend an extra $20 for the Heroic edition of Shadowlands if they want a character boost. Players will still need an active $15-a-month WoW subscription to play, however.

With that all in mind, there are still a few caveats to claiming a free copy of Shadowlands, as Blizzard has detailed in an official blog post. Players will need to have a Battle.net account with an expansion license for any of the game's previous expansions in order to claim Shadowlands and the free level boost. That means players who have never bought an expansion before or are using free trial accounts will be ineligible from claiming the freebie. In addition, any Battle.net account that already owns Shadowlands will not be able to claim the expansion a second time on another WoW account. That also applies to the level boost.

Eligible players need simply log in to the Battle.net desktop app and click the gift icon next to the notification bell icon to claim the free expansion and boost.

Even though Shadowlands isn't held in high regard by many WoW players, Blizzard's promotion looks to be a great way to get ready for WoW's new expansion, Dragonflight, which is set to release later in 2022 but does not yet have an official release date. However, a recent leak seems to point towards a late November release for the expansion, which will take players to the Dragon Isles and introduce a playable dragon race, the Dracthyr. For more on Dragonflight, be sure to check out our hands-on impressions.

In addition to Dragonflight, Blizzard is also re-releasing WoW's most popular expansion. Wrath of the Lich King Classic will launch on September 26, with the expansion's pre-patch--which will introduce the Death Knight class and the new Inscription profession--arriving August 30.