YouTuber Bellular’s analysis confirms these numbers and paints an even worse picture of player numbers in Shadowlands. He looked at how many players World of Warcraft. (buy now ) Lost since patch 9.1 not only in the raid, but also in dungeons and PvP. Results like 64% fewer Mythic Plus runs already speak clear words. Even if these numbers are not comparable 1:1 with the decline in the total number of players, it is no longer possible to gloss over how many players have turned their backs on WoW and the Shadowlands content after release.

Raid: 54% fewer boss kills from guilds in the first three months

In the first three months of Castle Nathria, 44,317 guilds defeated the first boss in normal mode, and 35,814 guilds defeated the last boss in NHC – that is, in normal mode. In comparison, in the Sanctum of Domination, there are 20,080 kills for the first boss and 16,201 kills for the last boss in NHC. Means in percent: 54.7% fewer raiders between a beast.

The comparison to BfA

BfA got off to a slightly worse start: 38,319 kills on the first boss and 27,233 kills over the last boss (NHC). This makes it clear how good Shadowlands’ sales were. It was until then the fastest selling computer game of all time.

BfA’s second raid Battle for Dazar’alor also saw a precipitous drop in raiders in the second tier: 22,061 kills of the first boss in NHC and 16,432 victories over the final boss. This clearly shows that the second tier is significantly less popular in each expansion. Understandable, because the beginning of an expansion is always very hyped and the hype drops rapidly afterwards.

Shadowlands’ player attrition between raid tiers is nevertheless significantly higher than in BfA: 41% fewer guilds raided in BfA, compared to a whopping 51% fewer guilds in Shadowlands..

Okay, but what about heroic mode?

A lot of casual players, as well as the more ambitious Heroic raiders, run through the normal mode of a raid during the first few weeks of a new raid. But doesn’t most raiding take place in heroic mode? As the numbers show, the number of raiders also slips compared to BfA: 52% (first boss) and 48% for the final boss.

The figure looks even worse for guilds that normally earn their Der Zeit advance success in the first three months – that is, defeat the heroic final boss before the next raid tier appears. Here lies the number compared to other expansions is between 50% and 67%.. In Shadowlands, the percentage for Nathria Castle is 39.9% and for Sanctum of Domination at 43.15%. – OUCH.

Dungeons: 64% less Mythic-Plus-Runs

As you can see from the graph, Dungeon – Season 1 of Shadowlands (red) was slow to get going, but made significant gains compared to BfA – Season 4 (blue) starting in the fourth week. The popularity of – Season 1 of Shadowlands compared to BfA – Season 4 is unmistakable. However, you have to keep in mind that Shadowlands’ launch was incredibly strong and – Season 4 was BfA’s last patch.

If you compare BfA – Season 4 and Shadowlands – Season 1 to the second Shadowlands – Season , you can see the downward trend we see in raider attrition in Shadowlands. At the same time in each – Season , 507,000 players completed Mythic-Plus dungeons in BfA, while in Shadowlands – Season 1 it was a whopping 789.000, while in Shadowlands – Season 2 after 16 weeks only 257,000 are.

Again, similar to the comparison between first and second raid tiers, the drop is normal. However, while BfA – Season 4 saw nearly 46% fewer players and Shadowlands – Season 1 saw an increase of just over 45%, Shadowlands – Season 2 player numbers dropped by a shocking 64%.. This is especially shocking considering that – Season 2 only brought the bravery points as well as the new scoring system.

This is how much players are less in PvP

Player attrition in PvP is similar to that of dungeons and raids. Measured here with the number of games played daily in the 3v3 in North America and Europe from August 9, 2021 to October 25, 2021.. While there were 29,496 games at the beginning of August, there were only 15,171 at the end of October. This is a Crash of 48.5.

A look at the MAUs (Monthly active Users)

As you can see in our Overview of Blizzard’s Q3 2021 financial report. sees, Blizzard was able to maintain its monthly user base of 26 million compared to the previous month. However, Diablo 2: Resurrected was the main attraction and fewer players were announced for WoW. That doesn’t sound spectacular at first, but it’s especially bitter when you consider that patch 9.1 was released at the end of June and the returners’ subscription numbers for that patch automatically spilled over into the third quarter of 2021.

Conclusion: The disastrous WoW numbers and a little hope

64% fewer Mythic Plus players (and falling), less than half as many Raiders, and almost as few PvP enthusiasts in 3v3. That’s the result of a stubborn WoW development cycle that only now seems to be broken. And certainly the lawsuits against Blizzard have contributed to this.

The figures for the fourth quarter of 2021 will be interesting, with which, thanks to Patch 9.1.5 a flood of fixes and feel-good updates came for the game and soon the Legion event mage tower rewards will be unlocked. And then there’s the test realm for Patch 9.2 coming up.