Blizzard has finally let us all know exactly when the long awaited World of Warcraft Classic will be returning longtime and new players back to the roots of the widely-known MMO. The modern take on the classic version will be available on August 27 of this year and will be completely free to players that already have a World of Warcraft subscription. Check out a short preview of what’s to come later this summer:
Blizzard has been very forthcoming in saying that restoring such a classic game with elements of the industry from about a decade ago has not been simple. The developers have gone through prototypes and have needed to addresses changes to the engineering of what WoW used to be, specifically, the data. Since the classic data is still in the original format that was used at its launch a lot of effort and care has been devoted to modernizing the client that is compatible with the classic’s data.
On a less complex note, with the official roll out date announced, players will want to mark their calendars for important upcoming dates beforehand. To start, a very small number of WoW players will be invited to take part in a focused closed beta test tomorrow, May 15. Following this will be the chance to help the team with a series of stress tests, the first of which will be from May 22 to May 23, the second from June 19 to June 20, and the third from July 18 through July 19. This will help sort out any general issues that the serves may run across once everything is launched. Those who will be chosen will have to have an active subscription or active game time on their Battle.net Account. For those not selected, they can still look forward to created their own character ahead of release on August 13 if they meet those same two requirements. For specific information on launch times in your area, check out Blizzard’s recent post.
Last time we talked about World of Warcraft Classic we were lucky enough to get a hands-on demo during BlizzCon 2018. Check out our first impressions here!