Exile's Reach

Not to be confused with Exile's Rise.

Exile's Reach
Level: 1 - 10
Loading screen
Capital(s)	Darkmaul Citadel
Races	Ogre Ogron  Quilboar Harpy  Murloc  Tortollan
Ruler(s)	Gor'groth †
Affiliation	Darkmaul, Independent
Location	North Sea
PvP status	Contested territory

Stranded on Exile's Reach.

Veteran players can still start by choosing their old starting zone.

Exile's Reach is an uncharted island located within the North Sea which serves as a level 1-10 starting zone in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. New World of Warcraft players automatically start in Exile's Reach before moving to their faction's capital and entering Dragonflight leveling content. Existing players starting new characters are able to choose if they want to start in their race's regular starting zone or in Exile's Reach. The story through the island culminates in a mini-dungeon of two bosses designed for 1 to 5 players, with scaling difficulty and no role requirements. Players can choose if they want to take on the challenge alone or with friends. Overall, the experience is intended to introduce new players to the world and the basics of the features seen later in the game.

Unlike most starting areas, Exile's Reach doesn't open with an introductory cutscene about the player character's race. Instead, a similar cutscene happens when the player leaves for Stormwind or Orgrimmar during  [7-10] An End to Beginnings.

Exile's Reach is not available for allied race characters and death knights, demon hunters, and evokers, all of which start above level 1 and/or have their own unique starting experiences.

History

At an unknown time but described as "long ago" by the vrykul Hjalmar, he was slain by the ogres who trapped his spirit here for daring to defy them. The ogres also took control of the local quilboars and harpies.

The Horde and Alliance sent an expedition to the island, but it was never heard from again. Novice adventurers travel to the island as part of a bigger and stronger expeditionary force to find out what happened. As with many such journeys, the adventurers find themselves as part of a crew aboard a ship bound to their last known location. When things take a turn for the worse, they make landfall on the island of Exile's Reach, eventually discovering that the previous expedition was captured by an ogre necromancer who intends to sacrifice them to raise an undead dragon.

Quests

Quests on Exile's Reach play out in the Exile's Reach storyline, the introductory experience for new characters.

Geography

Exile's Reach is a small island part of an archipelago in the North Sea, located to the northeast of the Broken Isles—at a considerable distance off the coast of Stormheim—and in between Northrend and Lordaeron. The island has large mountains, vistas, waterfalls, dark forests, and a variety of familiar monsters. Ogre ruins dot the central area of the island.

The islands surrounding Exile's Reach have vrykul settlements and night elven ruins.

Maps and subregions

Map of Exile's Reach.

Darkmaul Citadel Darkmaul Plains Darkmaul Bridge Hrun's Barrow Killclaw's Lair Ogre Ruins Harpy Roost The Jagged Coast Jrokgar's Coast Murloc Hideaway Abandoned Camp The North Sea Quilboar Briarpatch

Undisplayed locations Alliance Camp / Horde Camp

Dungeons

Instance name	Level range	Group size	Approximate run time
Darkmaul Citadel	10	5

Notes and trivia

• There are no mailboxes on the island.
• The slash command /run C_Tutorial.AbandonTutorialArea() can be used to instantly leave Exile's Reach and be transported to your faction's capital city. It may need to be followed by a /reload, as some parts of the UI are hidden during the tutorial and will remain hidden until the UI is reloaded.
• The ogre architecture on the island is distinctly Gorian, making it one of the very few places on Azeroth to use the imperial ogre craftsmanship, the other being ruins on the Seething Shore and on Un'gol Ruins.
• The island sits in the center of a large archipelago of unreachable islands, most of which are copy and pasted bits of terrain from the Stormheim zone.
• At BlizzCon 2019, death knights and demon hunters were originally stated to also start at level 1 on Exile's Reach with the option for veteran players of playing their original hero class starting experiences as an alternative.
• The background music played on the island is an adaptation of music tracks from Warcraft II.
• Various easter eggs can be found around the island, including...
  • A hidden underwater cave in the northern part of the river. Three tortollans found here will transport you back to your camp.
  • A shipwreck on the Jagged Coast, with a nearby camp where Pepe and a Clockwork Rocket Bot can be found.
  • A group of prairie dogs at the Ogre Ruins.
  • A baby atop a tree in the Harpy Roost.

Speculation

This article or section includes speculation, observations or opinions possibly supported by lore or by Blizzard officials. It should not be taken as representing official lore.

It may or may not be the same archipelago that once featured on the world maps before Wrath of the Lich King.

Gallery

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  Exile's Reach loading screen pre-9.1.5
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  Exile's Reach location as shown for Alliance players as they depart the island to Stormwind.
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  The hidden underwater cave in the river.
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  East of Murloc Hideaway a skeleton of a mermaid?
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  Baby in a nest in Harpy Roost.

BlizzCon 2019

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  Exile's Reach as shown at BlizzCon 2019
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Patch changes

• Patch 9.1.5 (2021-11-02): Loading screen updated; now displays the vanilla logo instead of the Shadowlands logo.
  
• Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): Added.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• WoWDB
• Wago