WotLK Classic pre-patch and official release date have always been hot topics among fans, but Blizzard has not officially announced them. There are mainly two leaks that have been shared a lot around the internet lately, so here MmoGah will go over these two leaks.
One is the Discord Message with a Screenshot, and another one is a low-resolution picture of the Battle.net app showing a release date for Wrath Classic. All of them could be easily photoshopped, but they are in line with the timeline.
The Discord Message with a Screenshot
This one gives us an entire timeline for the upcoming content, leading all the way up to Wrath Classic's release.
On Jul 19, we can get the XP Buff.
On Aug 2, the current Arena Season ends.
On Aug 9, TBC's realms consolidation starts rolling out.
On Aug 16, Wrath Classic's beta closes, and on the same day, the pre-patch starts on the live servers. We also know that fresh Wrath servers are coming out with the pre-patch.
For the big reveal: Wrath of the Lich King Classic will be released on Sep 13. This was also allegedly leaked by a retail developer with insider knowledge, but then again, it is just a Screenshot of a Discord Message, so who really knows. No matter how we can store up more WotLK Classic gold, and when the new expansion comes, we'll be rich.
Whether or not this leak is real, I guess it is up to each of you to find out for yourself. Although speech so, the timeline could be correct!
Go back to the forums when Blizzard announced the Joyous Journey - Summer XP Buff. They said they would be rolling that out in the "coming weeks". That was three weeks ago, so I'm actually expecting this to be rolling out either this week or next week, which would make it Jul 12 or Jul 19, fitting right into this timeline. As for the pre-patch, they wanted the Joyous Journey - Summer XP Buff to begin a few weeks before the 3.4.0 pre-patch and last all the way up to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, so according to this timeline, the Joyous Journey Buff will be active for four weeks before the pre-patch launches, which again fits right into exactly what they said on the forums.
The release date - Sep 13 will also give us exactly four weeks of the 3.4.0 Pre-patch, which also fits right into what they have previously said on the forums regarding the length of the pre-patch itself, so everything fits right into it here.
Go back to TBC Classic's Beta for a quick second. That beta launched at the end of March, and TBC Classic came out on Jun 1, which gave us just about two months of Beta Testing. WoW WotLK Classic's beta started on Jun 22, so according to this leak, we are once again looking at just about two months of Beta Testing, which fits right into the schedule.
All of that being said, I think this is just a very educated guess by someone who did a little bit of research beforehand and wanted to spark some energy into the leak conversation, but I have to say all of these dates sound possible. This is roughly how the content rollout, plus minus a couple of weeks here and there.
Low-Resolution Picture of the Battle.net App
While this leak was just a text with some plausible dates, we also have a different leak that includes visuals. However, it is quite low quality, showing a date - September 6.
It looks like it's taken from the battle.net app before someone logs in to the game, but if you go to the Shop button on your battle.net app, it takes you to this page, and the usual text underneath is "The King Returns" .
Usually, I would be pretty quick at shutting down these leaks because they are quite easy to photoshop since all of the visuals, including the background and the Wrath Classic Logo are available, but previous release dates have been leaked on the battle.net app prior to the launch itself.
Either way, according to this leak, the release date will be Sep 6, and the first leak will be Sep 13. Both of them are very realistic dates for an actual Wrath Classic release.
We also have to think business here, and we know that Dragonflight - the next retail expansion, is coming on or before Dec 31, 2022. They want to have as much space between Wrath Classic and Dragonflight as possible. Not that everyone who plays WotLK Classic will also play Dragonflight, retail and Classic attracts completely different audiences and players, but there is some crossover between the two games. Several of my friends play both versions of the game, and Blizzard definitely doesn't want to be their competitors when it comes to launching expansions too close to each other. Speaking from a business point of view, they want to launch Wrath Classic so much in advance of Dragonflight that people are somewhat bored & tired of Wrath when Dragonflight comes out. That way, more people will give Dragonflight a try.
These two leaks have just gained too much traction lately. While they are probably fake, they aren't too far off regarding the actual release dates, which means Wrath Classic is approaching quickly. With these dates, we are just about a month away from the pre-patch itself and the Fresh Wrath Servers, which is amazing! Stay tuned for more updates or guides on MMOGAH. Writing This article, we used the video below as a reference.