Beneath Lordaeron: Exploring the Ruins of the Undercity


The human city of Lordaeron has stood for centuries, once the capital of the Alliance, then the seat of the Forsaken, now a pile of rubble…

Lordaeron Gates
That’ll buff out.

After serving as the Forsaken capital since Vanilla, Lordaeron and the Undercity were unceremoniously blown up during the opening act of Battle for Azeroth. The city was flooded with a toxic plague that kills players in seconds, and invisible walls were put up in front of every entrance to the Undercity, making passage into the old capital impossible.

undercity elevator
It seems somewhat fitting that only the dead can enter the Undercity.
undercity elevator
Why would you put spikes on an elevator?

Except for one little oversight. Dead players can walk through the invisible barriers and resurrect on the other side. Using the method detailed in the video above, just fly into the throne room, succumb to the plague, and resurrect behind the invisible wall and you can freely take the elevator and explore the city below!

ruins of the undercity
Ah, the Undercity in all of it’s… beauty?

Inside, players find a hollow echo of the once lively halls.

Upon disembarking the elevator, we find ourselves in the main square of the Undercity. While the city generally appears the same as it did before its destruction, all the NPCs and some objects are missing, leaving only a hollow shell of the once great capital.

Undercity interiorTraveling further outward into the circular halls, we can explore the outer rings of the city. However watch your step, there are several areas scattered about which will teleport you back outside the front gates, forcing you to redo the entire process again.

undercity tunnel

undercity tunnel wallFollowing the outermost ring we come across the twisting series of archways that lead to the sewer entrance. Once frequented by Alliance raids planning to sneak into the city and kill Sylvanas, the tunnel has now been blocked by a pile of rocks at its entrance. As well as a slightly less immersive, but much more effective, invisible wall hiding just behind the rockslide.

pink boxApproaching the wall from the other side by clipping through the rocks reveals that it’s mounted on a pink and white checkered box just below the surface of the ground. These boxes are often used to place static objects in the world, and can be found underneath the ground throughout Azeroth

undercity plague
I’m severely questioning the lethality of this plague.

undercity mailbox

Back inside the city, one small but bizarre thing of note is that the mailboxes don’t work. On its own this wouldn’t be too unusual, except that this version of the Undercity is just a copy of the undestroyed version. And every single copy of a capital city I’ve ever explored has had working mailboxes, because to “deactivate” them the developers have to specifically go back and disable each mailbox.

My one guess at an explanation is that the developers did this so that players flying over the supposedly destroyed city didn’t have a bunch of mailbox icons pop up on their minimaps.

undercity guard
In my defense, it was abandoned when I got here!

Heading into Sylvanas’ inner sanctum causes us to phase into the undestroyed version of the city for a moment, before being teleported out entirely and deposited outside of the ruined front gates.

ruins of lordaeron

While not quite as destroyed as the lore wants you to believe, it’s interesting to explore the abandoned husk of the Undercity, as well as getting the opportunity to witness just how many different barriers were put up to keep players from entering the empty ruins.

So whether you’re an avid explorer, or you’re just a very determined paladin trying to retake the holy land, the ruins of the Undercity beneath Lordaeron is well worth the visit.



Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here