World of Warcraft Classic released in 2019 after years of World of Warcraft players requesting a way to experience the popular MMO how it was before all of its many expansions. Later, it was announced that World of Warcraft Classic would be receiving the MMO's first expansion, Burning Crusade.
Burning Crusade was originally released in 2007, and notably brought two new playable races to the title, the Draenei for the Alliance and Blood Elves for the horde. The expansion is also fondly remembered by many fans for raising the game's level cap to level 70 and introducing flying player mounts for players to traverse the world with. It also brought a whole new story, dungeons, and raids to World of Warcraft that players can expect to return to World of Warcraft Classic.
While Burning Crusade Classic beta invites started being sent out by developer Blizzard just last month, players will not have much longer to wait to return to the expansion themselves. Blizzard announced today that the expansion will be added to World of Warcraft Classic on June 1 at 3 pm PDT, with the associated pre-expansion patch rolling out on May 18. The expansion will be launching worldwide at the same time, so everyone will get access to the new expansion simultaneously, which should make for a fun experience for players jumping in on launch day.
Although the release of Burning Crusade Classic will have some differences from the original, hopefully, the worldwide release will create some of the exciting first days after launch that the original release saw. When the expansion launches, World of Warcraft Classic players will have a choice to make for their characters. For any players that don't want to move on to the expansion, they will have to move their characters over to a Classic Era realm that will not run with the expansion. Players who are ready to move on to Burning Crusade will have the choice of either moving their character to a Burning Crusade realm or cloning their character to have a version of it in each type of realm.
It is nice that Blizzard is allowing World of Warcraft Classic the choice of whether or not to play with the expansion, as well as letting players jump and forth between the two experiences. It is a safe approach that should satisfy all players, while also being a cool way to approach the difficult task of archiving a video game that is constantly being updated and changed. Thankfully, fans will not have much longer to wait before they can jump back into Burning Crusade, and it will be interesting to see what else is in store for the MMO.
World of Warcraft Classic is available now on PC, with the Burning Crusade Classic expansion launching June 1.
Source: Blizzard