When is the WoW WotLK Classic expansion release date?

We don't know exactly when the WoW WotLK Classic will happen, but we can make some guesses. We do know it's slated for 2022. With the pandemic slowing down development times, and many high-profile employees leaving in the wake of Blizzard's sexual harassment lawsuit, it's fair to say that full-scale development may not be going according to normal parameters. Still, knowing the year helps us narrow it down significantly.

The beta is expected to take place in July or August. With the new Dragonflight(opens in a new tab) expansion pack likely to hit retail World of Warcraft in early 2023, we may see the arrival of Wrath of the Lich King Classic a few months before that . So we'll probably release in September to November.

World of Warcraft Classic (now also known as Age of Classics) was released on August 26/27, 2019, depending on where you are in the world. The game debuted at BlizzCon 2018 and was field tested for players at home to download and play through 15 levels. The quality of its initial reveal clearly indicates that the game has been in development for some time, probably about a year before release. Meanwhile, The Burning Crusade Classic releases on June 1, 2021, nearly two years after its parent game. If all things being equal, Blizzard hasn't made major changes, and the global pandemic hasn't kept everything working from home for a while, then we'll see a Wrath Classic in 2023 as a viable option.

But even in this case, there's reason to believe that Rage Classic will take longer to release than Burning Crusade Classic. Northrend is a huge and extensive expansion with a lot of content going from level 70 to level 80, and that's not counting all the dungeons and raids. As of the last major content patch, Wrath had 16 dungeons, and 8 raids. Or if you count the Vault of Archavon, Nine Raids, a single boss raid only accessible through Wintergrasp, a huge open world PVP area itself unlike anything seen before, Incorporating elements of the battlefield with a mechanic that sees one faction or the other "wins" the conflict and takes ownership of the raid until the next battle begins.

Will Wrath Classic adapt all of Wrath of the Lich King?

Wrath also saw the introduction of the LFD tool, which for the first time allowed players to queue into dungeon groups and be placed in random groups assembled by the system. No more standing and spamming "LF2DPS Utgarde Keep" or what have you in trading chat, it's a pretty significant gameplay change. Wrath Assault is notorious for its difficulty mode, some fights are harder, and use a variety of methods to provide better loot, from don't kill the dragon before Razas, just switch it to 10/25 H and start. This adds a lot of complexity to scaling.

Before launching an expansion of this magnitude, concrete decisions must be made. What are the phases of Wrath Classic and what are in them? Should the game launch with LFD enabled, or should it be added at a later stage? Dungeon Finder didn't launch until patch 3.3.0, Fall of the Lich King - before that, Wrath used the same chat channel system and simple finder group interface as its predecessor. Dungeon Finder is a cross-server grouping tool - it doesn't limit you to players on your home server, which means it's more complex, and it changes the way players relate to their servers.

One of the things WoW Classic players—whether it’s Classic Era or Burning Crusade Classic—enjoy the classic experience is that it repositions the server community to play a vital role in the game. Introducing Dungeon Finder will likely weaken that, so I'm curious to see when or if Blizzard even chooses to introduce it in Wrath Classic. While I think it's clear that most players love Wrath Classic, they may not love everything in Wrath. Could this be the first Warcraft Classic expansion pack to intentionally omit features from the original game? Blizzard has a lot of decisions to make here.

While there's a reason Wrath of Wrath may have taken longer to launch than The Burning Crusade Classic, there's also a good reason why it probably won't take that long -- namely, Blizzard The classic version is already known to be a success. Instead of waiting for a delay to see if World of Warcraft Classic is successful, it will consider whether to build more content - the team knows it was a success, and players are hungry for more. Season of Mastery proved the need for more Warcraft Classics, so Blizzard may already be working on Rage Classics. Even with the pandemic and the company's current legal issues, it could be close to the game's PTR.