Which World of Warcraft expansion introduced the game's first level squish?

The World of Warcraft expansion that introduced the game’s first level squish was Shadowlands.

Released on November 23, 2020, Shadowlands radically reorganized character progression. Before its pre-expansion update, Battle for Azeroth characters could reach level 120. The squish converted a level-120 character to level 50 and established level 60 as Shadowlands’ new maximum, returning the cap to the same number used by the original 2004 game.

The change was intended to make leveling feel more meaningful and less intimidating after years of expansion-based increases. Blizzard also rebuilt the leveling path: new players used Exile’s Reach and then continued through Battle for Azeroth, while veteran players could select a previous expansion through Chromie Time for levels 10–50.

This was specifically a level squish, not merely a stat or item squish. Earlier updates had reduced inflated damage and gear numbers, but Shadowlands was the first time the character-level scale itself was compressed. Dragonflight later raised the cap from 60 to 70.