While it got overshadowed by World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary this year, WoW Classic’s fifth birthday was a thing that happened as well. It couldn’t have taken place in a more momentous year for this alternate version of the world-famous MMORPG, a year that begin with a plan and ended with surprises and questions.
Before we move on to 2025, I wanted to take a cruise back through WoW Classic’s journey this year, from Season of Discovery to Hardcore to 20th Anniversary Realms to that legendary beast, Classic Plus. Set your hearthstone to this column and sit down for a spell!
As 2024 began, WoW Classic’s main branch was wrapping up the Wrath of the Lich era with an eye on the next expansion to come and the Classic Era community was either caught up in Hardcore or the relatively new Season of Discovery realms. For the first time in studio history, Blizzard put out a roadmap for Classic, which was both needed and a good sign that the studio was invested in this side of the MMO.
Speaking of Season of Discovery, the second phase arrived in February with the new Gnomeregan raid, a level cap increase to 40, and the end of GDKP runs. That same month, the official Hardcore servers got the much-requested “self found mode” that restricted participants from trading, buying, and selling with each other.
Beta testing for Cataclysm Classic kicked off in early March, reminding players of what a monumental shift the servers would see going into the next expansion. Wrath Classic’s last hurrah arrived at the end of the month with a dungeon boost event, and Season of Discovery quickly hopped into Phase 3 on April 4th with the Temple of Atal’Hakkar raid.
Cataclysm Classic’s reign began on April 30th with the pre-patch that contained #SomeChanges from the original expansion’s vision. Season of Discovery servers saw a merge in early May that irked some roleplayers, and Cataclysm returned to the spotlight on May 20th with the expansion re-launch (although the raid finder proved to be a contentious absence).
A slightly delayed Phase 4 arrived for Season of Discovery on July 11th, complete with early endgame raids. Blizzard teased the prospect of Classic Plus content in a survey given out that month, and the Rise of the Zandalari event happened in Cataclysm Classic on the 20th. More raids were then added to Season of Discovery with the late-September Phase 5.
Around the end of October and the start of November, Cataclysm Classic’s third phase arrived with the Fireland Raids, elemental rune dungeons, and the Molten Front questing area.
The November 13th Warcraft Direct stream had a lot of impactful news for WoW Classic fans, including confirmation of Pandaria Classic in 2025, brand-new endgame content for Season of Discovery, and a set of new 20th Anniversary fresh start realms happening later that month. Oh, and the studio presented a full 2025 roadmap for the three main versions of the game.
Season of Discovery saw Phase 6 with Ahn’Qiraj on November 20th and confirmed that the SoD servers would be kept online after the phases were complete.
WoW Classic Classic launched the next day with PvE, PvP, and Hardcore realms — including an Oceanic PvP realm after player campaigning. These versions had no GDKP and were promised eventual dual specs. The first two raids arrived in December as players settled in for the year-long wait until The Burning Crusade.
That brings us to today, with plenty of updates on the horizon and continually burning questions about what, if anything, the studio is doing with the Classic Plus concept. Personally, the fresh start realms brought me back to this version of the game in a great way, and I’m fully excited to follow Classic as it continues to grow — so expect to hear more from me in this space next year!
And finally, if you’d like to catch up on the Casually Classic columns written this year, absolutely nobody is stopping you from clicking on the following: