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Leaks ahead of the official reveal have already given us some details.
Looking for details on the next World of Warcraft expansion? The official announcement (opens in new tab) isn’t due until April 19 but that doesn’t mean we don’t have ideas on where the next major update will take us. There’s another patch arriving before then and we’re looking forward to learning more about the upcoming expansion with a great deal of hope.
As is the case with big announcements, there have been leaks (opens in new tab) that are pretty persuasive, considering their source is apparently Blizzard itself. I’ll go into more detail about that below, so click away now if you want to avoid spoilers. Without further ado, here’s what we know about World of Warcraft’s next expansion, a possible release date, and where it might take us.
While we know we’re getting the announcement of World of Warcraft’s new expansion on April 19, we can only speculate about the release date at this time.
The final Shadowlands patch, the 9.2.5 update (opens in new tab), is currently on the PTR (public test realm) so we’re expecting it to launch somewhere around July or August. That would mean we shouldn’t expect the new expansion to land until the end of 2022 at the very earliest, though a release date for the beginning of 2023 seems more likely.
Historically, most expansions have launched between August and December, the only exception being Wrath of the Lich King, which arrived in January back in 2007.
Of course, I’ll update this guide as soon as Blizzard gives us more information.
At around the same time, several Redditors began sharing this image (opens in new tab) (see below) showing Alexstrasza, and what looks like Wrathion in his dragon form—along with the new World of Warcraft: Dragonflight logo.
As Alexstrasza is known as the Life-Binder, and guardian of all life in Azeroth, it would make a nice contrast to the death-focused realm of the Shadowlands. We saw quite a bit of Wrathion and the dragon aspects towards the end of Battle for Azeroth, in our fight against N’zoth, so it would be good to catch up with them when we return to the world of the living. Also, dragons are just cool, so what’s not to like?
It’s not the first time the dragon theme has been suggested as the next expansion, either. The Dragon Pack, a bundle that offers various dragon mounts and pets, was offered in the game’s shop at the end of 2021, leading a Reddit user (opens in new tab) to speculate about the theme of the next expansion several months ago.
And if the leak turns out to be correct, we’ll finally get to visit the Dragon Isles. This location was originally intended to be part of the original World of Warcraft, though the area was never used (opens in new tab). It was eventually removed during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
She’ll probably be too tied up with grinding her (endless) weekly Maw quest to pay much attention to the next expansion, sadly.
Sarah’s earliest gaming memories involve playing Jet Set Willy on the ZX Spectrum at a friend’s house. These days, and when not writing guides, most of her spare time goes into MMOs—though she’s quite partial to JRPGs too. She has spent much of the last decade playing the likes of Star Wars: The Old Republic, TERA, Final Fantasy 14, and World of Warcraft. Sarah has been writing about games for several years and, before joining PC Gamer, freelanced for the likes of TechRadar, GamingBible, and Rock Paper Shotgun. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.
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