Classic+ when?

WoW Classic The Burning Crusade Classic
1

I’ll preface this by defining Classic+ as a game targeted at players who enjoy vanilla, TBC, and WotLK - a game based on vanilla, but significantly enhanced with reworked class talents and abilities, as well as new zones, quests, dungeons, and raids. At the same time, the spirit of vanilla (which is hard to define and probably very subjective) would be preserved.

We don’t know anything concrete about Classic+; we don’t even know if it’s actually in development. However, there have been many hints from developers, so let’s assume it is in development and that more information will be revealed at BlizzCon.

An interesting question is: when will Classic+ be released?

So, here are my thoughts.

Option one: Classic+ will be released in early 2027 - or even in a crazy scenario, like two weeks after BlizzCon.

Obviously, Anniversary WotLK would not happen in this case. It would be absurd to split the audience like that. There must be a significant overlap between players who would play WotLK and players who would play Classic+.

Now, Classic Pandaria is different. It’s so far removed from vanilla that, if it progresses into WoD and shortly afterward into Legion, its audience will be very different from players who prefer vanilla. After all, original Classic was announced in 2017 - during Legion! So it’s very possible that the 2019 Classic timeline will continue alongside Classic+.

I think this option would be super risky for Blizzard. After Anniversary TBC, WotLK is more or less guaranteed to succeed. There will be lots of players, lots of boosts sold, and lots of token sales at the beginning of the expansion. They added the token in Classic WotLK, so they’ll obviously add it to Anniversary WotLK as well. For management, that’s easy, low-risk money.

But Classic+ would be a new project, and it might fail. There’s a very real chance of that. Community opinion is highly divided on many Classic+ topics. Just look at surveys - plenty of topics are split 50/50, meaning half the player base would be unhappy with any decision. Adding monetization to Classic+ right from the beginning would also be a tough sell. Blizzard would first need to hook players, so they probably wouldn’t push monetization too aggressively at launch. That means it wouldn’t be easy, low-risk money. It would be a dangerous experiment that could easily leave hundreds of thousands of players without an interesting game to play in the WoW universe.

Option two: Classic+ will be released in the middle of 2027.

Basically, Blizzard would release WotLK and then release Classic+ around the time Ulduar launches. Obviously, this would kill WotLK, but Blizzard would still get the money from boosts and tokens beforehand.

That would be the worst possible behavior from Blizzard, which is exactly why I consider this scenario likely. If this option happens, we probably won’t hear any firm release dates at BlizzCon. They would announce them later, a month or two after WotLK launches.

Option three: Classic+ will be released at the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028.

Basically, after the Anniversary WotLK timeline ends - or maybe even later.

The main problem with that approach is that the hype could fade by then. Classic+ is hot right now. There are lots of discussions happening across various online forums. Will they survive years ahead?

What do you think? When do you expect Classic+, if ever? How will it affect Anniversary WotLK?

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There will be no such a thing like Classic+

  1. Wotlk = easy money / no effort. Makes no sense to business
  2. WoW2 is probably on table rather than another “resuscitation attempt”
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well, they could always snag turtle wows code. Work smarter not harder

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No, its unusable. Outdated code, plenty of security risks. And redoing that costs more money than build it from zero.

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Why would they do that?

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Yeah, I dont really care. I just want a fresh hc realm:c

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Could they go off on a different route after wotlk and that would be classic +?

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I think they will copy SoD release.

What i meen is they anounce it on Blizzcon and hit it 1- 2 months later.

If you anounce it on Blizzcon and lett alot of streamers test it and live streame it you will maximice hype.

As they did before they remove competition and then give theire version.

Turtle is gone and now there is no real competition and no one can compere them.

9

You answered your own question, this is exactly what they will do, get all the shop sales from start of wotlk, then kill it with classic plus. Expect it to come couple of weeks into Ulduar when casual guilds used to Naxx25 and that WG boss get their noses bloodied by council and algalon and yogg.

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I am not gonna predict anything, but let’s clear up things first, did blizzard confirmed anywhere that wotlk anniversary is going to happen? When they announced anniversary they only said it will go into tbc, without any further detail. I personally think, it more depends on how ready their “classic+” will be to release, so if it will be ready only by mid 2027 fine, if somehow they manage to let players experience it like sod just month after blizzcon even crazier but can work if they mostly done it by now. Also to me makes more sense they would sunset most of other projects by the time classic+ releases (including mop and anniversary putting them possibly in era type of realms category), so they can spend most of efforts on this new product

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No, they didn’t.