After more than a year of World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic, Blizzard Entertainment announced that Wrath of the Lich King Classic is the next game to come out.
In Wrath of the Lich King Classic, the heroes of Azeroth will return from crossing the Dark Portal after stopping Illidan Stormrage and Kil’jaeden and go to Northrend, a frozen foreign land that is not part of Azeroth. They will do this with the Lich King in the lead.
The first new class, the Death Knight, new Raids, a lot of new content, and more will all be part of the new expansion.
That makes me wonder: When will the WotLK Classic pre-patch come out? So far, here’s what we know.
When does WotLK Classic pre-patch release?
WoTLK Classic’s pre-patch doesn’t have a release date yet, just like its release date.
But we can make some guesses about when WoTLK Classic’s pre-patch will be live based on how long it took from when Burning Crusade Classic was first announced to when its pre-patch came out.
Burning Crusade Classic was first shown off in February 2021, and its pre-patch went live in late May 2021. This means that we can expect WotLK Classic to be the same. The expansion for The Lich King was first announced in April 2021, so its pre-patch would be in late July or early August.
In WotLK Classic’s timeline, it’s also important to note that the game hasn’t been given a release date yet, even though it’s been almost three months. Compare this to the fact that Burning Crusade Classic’s release date wasn’t announced until early May 2021, four months after it was first announced. This could mean that WotLK Classic’s release date is coming up soon, which means that the pre-patch will come soon after.
The same can be said about the timing of the announcement and the beta. Even though WotLK Classic’s beta is a bit more tightly knit than Burning Crusade Classic’s, it too started beta testing a month after the first announcement.
WotLK Classic: New Max Level, New Class, And New Areas
- Level 80 is the new max level
- Northrend with its 10 territories as a new continent with Dalaran as capital
- the death knight as a new class
- Inscription as a new profession
- new dungeons
- new raids, each with versions for 10 and 25 players
- heroic raids
- Barbers as a new feature
- successes
- dual talent specialization
If you play Death Knights in modern WoW, you’ll notice that WotLK Classic is quite different. Death knights were very different back then. They could tank in any specialization and had to pay more attention to their runes.
What will be there when it comes out?
Blizzard hasn’t said for sure yet when WotLK Classic will be released. But the content is likely to come out in stages again, just like it did with WoW Classic and Burning Crusade Classic. At release (phase 1), you are likely to be able to:
- Naxxramas and the Obsidian Sanctum and the Eye as a raid
- the entire continent of Northrend
- 2 new arenas
- 12 dungeons