Bolvar Fordragon of World of Warcraft fame is dominating the gaming news feed today, as an accidental discovery of new artwork appeared on the Blizzard Gear Store before disappearing behind a 403 forbidden/access restricted error.
BlizzCon 2019 is right around the corner, and as always, leaks and rumors are flying like over-caffeinated bats around their internet cave. Many of these leaks and rumors are false, and a small handful of them bear some legitimacy. So when Blizzard itself makes a mistake and allows eagle-eyed fans to discover artwork before they were supposed to, everyone takes notice. And that is exactly what happened yesterday.
The Blink Shopping feature for BlizzCon went live on the Blizzard Gear Store, and along with it a fine art image of Bolvar Fordragon, listed in the store as “Mystery Print” and “Mystery Shirt,” along with the words “WoW: Shadowlands.” This means it was likely that this particular image was supposed to remain hidden until the official announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion at BlizzCon next week. To remove all doubt of this, Blizzard has now restricted access to the original link on the Gear Store, hiding the artwork of Bolvar behind a 403 forbidden error.
The original leak was provided by @Miquelisme to MMOChampion via Twitter last night.
¿Se viene todo lo gordo? @Marlamin https://t.co/wA0xigWrI6 pic.twitter.com/E94LwLtcdA
— Miquelisme (ง •̀_•́)ง ⌛TVA⌛ 🆄🅲🅼-616🌌 (@Miquelisme) October 28, 2019
In addition to the Bolvar artwork and the Gear Store potentially confirming the next World of Warcraft expansion as Shadowlands, a new Overwatch 2 art print appeared for purchase. Eagle eyed fans immediately noticed the inclusion of future hero Echo within the image, providing more hype for the possibility she might see an official announcement next week.
One last image has also been making the rounds of the internet, ostensibly showing the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands logo and some artwork, though this has been questioned and partially debunked by various reddit users. However, Shadowlands being the title for the next WoW expansion seems highly likely due to the Gear Store leak.
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