Just a few months after Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic, a release date has been confirmed for the expansion. Along with the announcement comes several major changes to World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade Classic servers in preparation for the upcoming launch.
Wrath of the Lich King was one of the most popular and beloved expansions in World of Warcraft's history, fondly remembered 13 years after its 2008 release as a golden era for the game. The expansion introduced the icy continent of Northrend and its 10 new zones, the game's first new class, Death Knights, and concluded a story arc that began during the Warcraft series of real-time strategy games. Players progressed through a variety of dungeons and raids leading up to a final confrontation with Arthas Menethil, the expansion's eponymous Lich King, who has been controlling the undead scourge afflicting Azeroth.
Blizzard has just announced that the release date for Wrath of the Lich King Classic is September 26, giving players about two months to prepare for their expeditions into Northrend. Wrath of the Lich King Classic is going to deviate slightly from the original version of the expansion in ways that Blizzard believes to be improvements. Dungeon Finder will not be featured in the expansion this time around, with the intention of fostering the strong sense of community that Classic players appreciate. The barber shop will have modern WoW features, and Personal Arena Rating will be replacing Arena Teams based on feedback from TBC Classic.
Players will be able to purchase level 70 boosts to get started with Wrath of the Lich King Classic content immediately, although this will not be available for the first 90 days on Wrath of the Lich King fresh start realms. From now until the expansion release, players on TBC Classic servers will get to enjoy a 50% XP increase to speed up the leveling process in preparation. Also arriving with the XP bonus was a controversial hotfix targeted at eliminating dungeon boosting, which has crippled the boosting and farming industry that has been afflicting Classic economies. XP gains have been decreased when a high-level player is in the party, and dungeon enemies have gained immunity to slow and root effects over time.
Wrath of the Lich King Classic will roll out over the course of five phases, starting with the Naxxramas raid and ending with The Ruby Sanctum. With one of WoW's most popular expansions finally available in Classic, the upcoming World of Warcraft: Dragonflight expansion is going to face a lot of competition for the attention of WoW's players.
World of Warcraft is available on PC.
Source: Blizzard