I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect to write an article like this at some point or another. After Blizzard finally acquiesced to the desires of World of Warcraft’s player base by producing World of Warcraft Classic and The Burning Crusade Classic, it seemed like making a version of what is widely considered to be the game’s best expansion in the same vein as “vanilla” Classic and TBC Classic would be a natural next move for Blizzard.

The remainder of this article will consist almost entirely of speculation on my part, but it seems that Wrath of the Lich King Classic is brought closer to fruition with each passing week. I say “almost” entirely speculation because I do actually have a shred or two of evidence that may well assist in backing up that claim. Before I get to that, though, I think something that should be acknowledged is the rather immense popularity of WoW Classic and the equally emulated version of its first expansion.

The way I see it, if the original WoW Classic hadn’t been received as well as it was during its August 2019 launch, there wouldn’t have been much justification for Blizzard to forge ahead with making The Burning Crusade Classic. “Vanilla” Classic had a year (give or take a few months) to prove itself before TBC Classic launched on June 1st, 2021. The largely positive public reception to these two offerings from Blizzard is, I’m sure, what has led to what I see as the increasingly probable development of Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

Blizzard’s continued support of WoW Classic and TBC Classic has likely helped in that endeavor as well. A new significant patch for TBC Classic just went live not too long ago at the time of writing, for example. There’s also what Blizzard calls the “Season of Mastery” for “vanilla” Classic, which is apparently a somewhat altered version of original Classic content and its release schedules intended for a special one-year-long competition among those who have chosen to accept its challenges.

Admittedly, I haven’t the faintest idea exactly how much these concepts have helped to sustain Classic versions of WoW. Even so, they seem like suitable enough ways of drumming up continued interest in these game versions, so I wouldn’t go so far as to imagine they’ve hurt Classic’s general popularity. I’d be curious to see if Blizzard ever implements a “Season of Mastery”-style event for TBC Classic to complement the version intended for the original version. I would venture a guess that at least a decent portion of TBC Classic players would be interested in that or something similar to it.

Moving on, I wish to discuss that shred or two of evidence I mentioned in support of Wrath of the Lich King Classic’s probable, eventual existence. The venerable World of Warcraft fansite known as Wowhead recently reported on a survey that has been distributed by Blizzard among certain circles of retail WoW and WoW Classic’s player bases. The existence of this survey was brought to light on WoW-centered circles of Reddit, which is common.

This survey asked a handful of relevant questions such as whether or not they played Wrath of the Lich King between 2008 and 2010 (when it was considered current), as well as how likely they would be to play a “Classic” version of that expansion if one were released. The survey went on to gauge how players feel about the balance of the game’s two playable factions on the Classic realms. Wowhead notes that faction imbalance has long been a significant issue in the two versions of Classic, as players often “flock to single-sided faction realms.”

What I thought was the most interesting question from this survey was this question: “If the population or faction balance issues you are facing were addressed, how likely are you to play World of Warcraft Classic or Burning Crusade Classic in the next 30 days?” This makes it sound to me as though Blizzard may be working on methods whereby they could address low server populations and/or severe faction imbalance going forward. Admittedly, I can’t think of any practical ways they could go about doing that off the top of my head.

I’ll bet I can guess what you’re thinking: “This is just a simple survey Blizzard reportedly sent out to certain parts of the game’s community in an attempt to gauge levels of public interest in a potential Classic version of Wrath of the Lich King. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee that such a thing is actually in development.” I acknowledge that you’re correct. It doesn’t guarantee anything at all. However, there is an additional precedent that further supports my claims.

You might recall that about a year and a half before World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was released, I wrote about a similar survey Blizzard sent out to certain portions of “retail” WoW’s active player base. This survey inquired about the potential “level squish”, as well as whether or not players were aware that such a reduction would have to take place at one point in the future or another. After all, the maximum character level was 120 at the time, so those numbers were growing increasingly untenable.

Then, whether the responses to that survey played a role or not, it was later confirmed that a rather dramatic “level squish” would indeed be implemented alongside the Shadowlands expansion. More specifically, the maximum player level was reduced by half as of the major content update that went live on October 13th, 2020. All of that is to say that Blizzard sends out surveys like this for a reason. Furthermore, they tend to act on the findings of those surveys in one way or another.

On a final note on the subject of Wrath of the Lich King Classic, I personally hope it constitutes the last step Blizzard takes in reviving past expansions in Classic-like forms. I don’t think there needs to be a Cataclysm Classic or anything past that, lest we wind up with emulated iterations of every expansion leading up to the present day. To me, that sounds both increasingly difficult to maintain and outright unnecessary.

Besides, Wrath of the Lich King was considered the game’s best expansion by legions of vocal players. This leads me to believe Blizzard should give those players what they’ve been asking for and then simply conclude the Classic line. Give the more vocal group of World of Warcraft fans the opportunity to go back to when they feel the game was at its peak and (in doing so) give newer players like myself the chance to see what all the fuss was about. With that popularity in mind, as well as that of “vanilla” Classic and The Burning Crusade Classic, I think Blizzard has a golden opportunity here. I just hope they don’t blow it.

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