WoW Shadowlands Will Get A Season 4 Featuring Dungeons From Old Expansions

World of Warcraft Shadowlands may have already received its final content update and just kicked off Season 3, but in an atypical move, Blizzard has now confirmed that the game will receive an additional season later this year.

Season 4 will mix things up when it comes to WoW's normal seasonal format, according to a Blizzard post on the game's official forums. WoW seasons typically consist of a rotating roster of Mythic+ dungeons (oftentimes featuring a new dungeon and new seasonal affixes), a new raid, and a new season of competitive PvP. Since Shadowlands isn't set to receive any new content--the recent Eternity's End update was the last--Blizzard looks to be pulling from previously released content to keep things fresh instead.

For Mythic+, Blizzard will be featuring two dungeons from the game's last four expansions. Those dungeons will be the two wings of Shadowlands' Tazavesh, the two wings of Battle for Azeroth's Operation Mechagon, the two wings of Legion's Return to Karazhan, and two to-be-determined dungeons from Warlords of Draenor. Players can vote on which two Draenor dungeons should be included.

Raiding will also be different in Season 4. With no new raid to tackle, Blizzard is instead looking to make all three of Shadowlands' raid tiers relevant in Season 4 by increasing their difficulty, adding a new seasonal affix, and increasing the power level of loot dropped within each raid.

Blizzard is set to reveal WoW's next expansion on April 19. The timing of the announcement (most new WoW expansions are typically announced at BlizzCon in November and then released roughly a year or so later) leads many fans to believe that WoW's next expansion won't be coming until sometime in the first half of 2023. The fact that Blizzard is now planning for an additional Shadowlands season to fill out the remainder of 2022 seems to back that idea up.

Shadowlands has proven to be a disappointing expansion for many players in the game's community, so the news that it will be sticking around for longer than is typical could be a hard pill to swallow for fans who are ready to move on to what's next for Blizzard's MMORPG. On the bright side, Blizzard is making the popular Mage Tower feature a permanent addition, which should give players some challenging solo content to pursue while they wait for new content. WoW fans can also look forward to the announcement of Blizzard's long-in-development Warcraft mobile game, slated to be revealed in May.