World of Warcraft Classic Gets 2019 Release Window, Offered Free to Subscribers

At last year's Blizzcon event, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it was bringing its own original World of Warcraft server to life. World of Warcraft: Classic was revealed as a splinter of the game, taking players back to the vanilla launch state.

"This is a larger endeavor than you might imagine, but we are committed to making an authentic, Blizzard-quality Classic experience. We want to produce the game experience that we all enjoyed from the original Classic WoW, not the actual launch experience," said World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack at the time. "So please bear with us, it's going to take some time."

Apparently, "some time" is under two years. Today at Blizzcon 2018, Blizzard Entertainment said that World of Warcraft: Classic is coming in Summer 2019. In addition, the vanilla server will be free to anyone with a current World of Warcraft subscription. This is largely the same as other classic progression server for titles like Everquest and Rift.

Folks at Blizzcon 2018 can enjoy a demo of World of Warcraft: Classic. Those who pick up the Blizzcon 2018 Virtual Ticket can do the same after the Blizzcon opening ceremonies finish today. The demo will be available until 10am PST on November 8.

"Players will have a chance to explore and enjoy a limited questing experience through a pair of classic early-level zones—one Horde and one Alliance—and experience firsthand our recreation of the original Azeroth," said Blizzard in its announcement of the demo.