Can You Level to 60 Without Shadowlands?
Yes, as of November 2022, the Shadowlands expansion content is now included with a standard World of Warcraft subscription. Any player with an active WoW sub can level characters all the way from level 1 to the current cap of 70, introduced in the Dragonflight expansion, without purchasing Shadowlands separately.
As a devoted WoW player myself who loves creating new alts, I was thrilled by this change. It opens up so much more leveling flexibility and freedom knowing I can now bring all my alts through the Shadowlands era without having to shell out for the expansion on every account!
In this guide from a passionate player to players, I’ll cover everything you need to know about leveling to 60 without Shadowlands in detail:
A Brief History of Level Cap and Expansions
Let’s start with some background on how the level cap and expansions have evolved over WoW’s long history:
| Expansion | Original Level Cap | Current Squished Level |
|---|---|---|
| Base Game (Vanilla) | 60 | 30 |
| The Burning Crusade | 70 | 30 |
| Wrath of the Lich King | 80 | 30 |
| Cataclysm | 85 | 35 |
| Mists of Pandaria | 90 | 40 |
| Warlords of Draenor | 100 | 40 |
| Legion | 110 | 45 |
| Battle for Azeroth | 120 | 50 |
| Shadowlands | 60 | 60 |
As you can see, prior to the recent level squish which condensed levels down to make the numbers more manageable, max level had reached 120 with 2018’s Battle for Azeroth expansion.
The key detail here is that every WoW expansion originally increased the level cap, with players needing to purchase each new expansion to advance further.
However, now older expansions get bundled into the core game over time, like Shadowlands has as of late 2022. Players can now reach 60 without ever owning it!
Do You Need Shadowlands to Level Past 50?
Up until the November 2022 roll into core subscription, if you leveled a character up to 50 and still didn’t own Shadowlands, you’d be stuck there, unable to progress to 60 for key endgame systems like Mythic+ dungeons or Raid Finder wing unlocks.
For example, my brother continued focusing on alts all through 2020 and 2021 rather than play Shadowlands. He brought multiple characters up to max level 50 gearing through Timewalking dungeons rather than buy an expansion he didn’t feel like playing.
Now in Dragonflight era, he can simply resubscribe and take those 50s all the way to 70 without purchasing anything past the subscription fee! New players also now only need sub, not base game.
So in short – NO, you absolutely do NOT need to buy Shadowlands to level to max current cap! The subscription contains everything now.
I Don‘t Have Access to Shadowlands – What Do I Do?
If for some reason you still don‘t see Shadowlands as included with your World of Warcraft subscription, a few things you can try:
- Check your World of Warcraft licenses under your Battle.net account. You should see Shadowlands listed now as a standard component:
See if you have any eligibility or notifications for a free copy of Shadowlands. Until Nov 2022 Blizzard was granting some inactive accounts Shadowlands.
If above options don‘t resolve, submit a ticket to Blizzard Customer Support. They can verify your entitlements and manually grant access if needed.
Consider grabbing Shadowlands Epic Edition when on sale if still not working and you wish to play through the content before continuing leveling.
Having leveled over 20+ alts through various expansions myself, I empathize greatly with the confusion and frustration over changing systems and piecemeal access to content! Hopefully Blizzard support can get this squared away for you in any stuck scenarios.
Leveling 1-60 Without Shadowlands
While the new unified leveling system revamps, like buffed XP rates and quest efficiencies, apply to all expansions now, you can still totally bypass the Shadowlands leveling campaign if you wish!
Here are a few ways how:
Chromie Time
Since COVID era, players have been able use Timewalker Chromie in capital cities to choose any expansion path for leveling alts rather than just newest.
My personal favorite is Legion for the story immersion, artifact weapons adding ability flavor, and quicker mobility. But Pandaria and Draenor Timewalking are fastest raw leveling.
Classic Era Realms
If you have no desire to play retail WoW endgame but still want to enjoy leveling process, roll toons on a Classic Era realm. You can level freely up to original 60 cap through Vanilla zones and dungeons, with no danger of overshooting cap.
Threads of Fate
Once Shadowlands journey guide is unlocked at 48, this Torghast-inspired rogue-like system can generate dynamic Shadowlands content to level through at your own pace rather than follow strict campaign questline.
There are so many more options now than ever before to customize your leveling adventure! Mix and match as you see fit.
Wrap Up: The Freedom of Leveling Alts in Modern WoW
I hope this guide brought you relief as it has me knowing that going forward, keeping our stable of beloved alts progressing no longer requires juggling that barriers of owning past expansions!
As WoW continues evolving more towards a seasonal model similar to Diablo III or PoE leagues, with content cycling in an out of main progression, I firmly believe they made the right call allowing all players to now reach current caps based on passion for the game rather than financial barriers.
If you have any other questions on how to level your cherished alts, whether to play through Shadowlands or bypass it entirely, don‘t hesitate to ask in comments or reach me in my blog‘s Discord community. I wish you glorious leveling adventures ahead!
