[Update 5/6/21] Blizzard has today officially announced that World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic launches globally on June 1st with the TBC pre-patch releasing later this month on May 18.
Beyond the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands lies a realm shattered by the machinations of the Burning Legion: Outland, the once beautiful orc homeworld of Draenor. Seek out its mysteries beginning June 1 when Burning Crusade Classic™ launches around the world.
Before that, however, every hero must make a choice. Beginning on May 18, after each regional scheduled maintenance, the Burning Crusade Classic Pre-expansion Patch will be released, and each character must choose whether to advance onward to Burning Crusade, move to a Classic Era realm, or use the Character Clone service to play in both games.
[Original story] The World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic release date might have been leaked ahead of an official announcement.
The classic server option for World of Warcraft’s first expansion is arriving somewhere this year, and recent rumors already suggested that it might arrive sooner than expected. The expansion is already available on the PTR since March as part of the closed beta with Blizzard releasing new builds on a regular basis. So when will the general public be able to enter Outland once again? Well, really soon if the official Blizzard launcher is to be believed.
Apparently, the launcher briefly mentioned a global release next month on June 1st (which is a Tuesday). According to Reddit user ‘Nonbread’, the article only showed up on the Heroes of the Storm page of the launcher and clicking the article linked to the World of Warcraft Classic website. A screenshot showing the release date can be seen below.
At this point, we haven’t been able to verify whether this image is the real deal or that we’re simply looking at a faked image. If legit, this would imply that Blizzard intends to launch TBC Classic in less than a month from now and this has fans speculating that the upcoming TBC pre-patch will only last two weeks. Interestingly, this does line up with the timeline for the expansion that was leaked some time ago – a pre-patch that lasts for two weeks and kicks off on May 18.
For now, take the information above with a pinch of salt. If true, it’s likely that Blizzard will officially announce the release date in the coming days.
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic was officially announced during BlizzConline back in February of this year. Prior to the announcement, the classic server option for TBC already leaked through a press release.
