World of Warcraft‘s latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth, is due out come late 2018, and it has already stirred quite a buzz in the WoW community. With new sub-races to choose from, new areas to explore, and dozens of new content to be explored, Blizzard has increased the hype by revealing pre-order bonuses and release date.
As of now, players can pre-purchase the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Standard Edition or the Digital Deluxe Edition. Pre-purchasing the Standard Edition will net you a couple bonuses: early access to unlock four Allied Races and a level 110 character level boost. With the Digital Deluxe Edition, you get all of the content previously stated as well as two special mounts (Gilded Ravasaur and Seabraid Stallion), a baby Tortollan pet, and Azeroth is Burning Hearthstone card back, Alliance and Horde Starcraft II sprays, a Heroes of the Storm Primal Flamesaber mount, and Overwatch voice lines, emotes, sprays and icons. The Standard Edition will be available for $49.99 and the Digital Deluxe Edition will be $69.99.
When you pre-purchase either edition, you will gain early access to unlock four new races, the Void Elf and Lightforged Draenei for the Alliance, and the Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren for the Horde. In order to gain access to these new races, however, players will need to have exalted reputation with certain factions before they gain a quest to unlock the respective races. Once the race is available, players can then create their new character, and these new races will begin at level 20. In addition to these four races, two additional races will be available later down the line. The Dark Iron Dwarves will be unlockable for the Alliance, and the Zandalari Trolls will be unlockable for the Horde.
With this expansion also comes the usual addition of content, such as the level cap being raised, new dungeons and raids being added, new continents, and new mechanics. The two new major areas will be Kul Tiras, the Alliance Kingdom, and Zandalar, the Horde Kingdom. There will also be new game modes which involve exploring uncharted isles of Azeroth to collect resources against enemy players, and a 20-player, RTS-Warcraft-inspired cooperative mode that will have players battle for strategic locations against enemy forces. In addition, players will be able to infuse their armor with Azerite to give their armaments new powers and traits for battle.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is due out on or before September 21 of this year, and beta testing for the expansion should be coming soon.