[Update 9/2/2020] After publishing our initial story, Blizzard has updated the minimum system requirements for the upcoming Shadowlands expansion. According to the new updated specs, players can still use a normal HDD although the experience might be impacted due to the performance of the drive.

　　The system requirements for the upcoming World of Warcraft Shadowlands expansion have been updated, and according to Blizzard, an SSD drive is required to play the expansion.

　　The minimum and recommended system requirements for both the PC and Mac version of World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion, mention that a Solid State Drive (SSD) with at least 100GB of free space. Previous expansions, including World of Warcraft most recent Battle for Azeroth expansion, didn’t mention an SSD as a system requirement. For reference, Battle for Azeroth requires an HDD (7200RPM) with at least 70GB of free space.

　　As with all system requirements, Blizzard does note that system requirements might change over time due to potential changes being made to World of Warcraft.

　　Interestingly, while Blizzard specifically says that an SSD is required to at least be able to play Shadowlands, World of Warcraft players are reporting that the beta of Shadowlands runs fine without an Solid State Drive. From the looks of it, Blizzard is solely mentioning the use of an SSD for faster loading times. As such, players using older setups without an SSD drive will, of course, still be able to play the upcoming Shadowlands expansion.

　　In other Shadowlands-related news – now that Blizzard has finally revealed the release date of the expansion this October, we might also know when the Shadowlands pre-patch will drop. As estimated by Icy Veins, based on released info from Blizzard and previous pre-patches, the Shadowlands pre-patch 9.0.1 is expected to release on either September 22 or September 29 with the first one being the most likely.

　　World of Warcraft Shadowlands is releasing globally on October 27. Are you excited for the upcoming expansion? Will you start playing World of Warcraft once again once the pre-patch hits? Hit the comments down below.