Blizzard today announced its bringing the first expansion for World of Warcraft to the Classic game in the form of Burning Crusade Classic. The expansion was leaked yesterday ahead of BlizzCon, and now it’s official. While the company didn’t give a specific release date, it did say that it’ll be released later this year, and a beta test is on the way sometime soon.
Players will be able to explore areas like Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, and will get access to two new races — the Blood Elves and the Draenei — as well as flying mounts. The level cap will also go up to 70. Players will be able to make Blood Elf and Draenei characters before Burning Crusade Classic officially launches thanks to a pre-expansion patch. It’s also planning to roll out content updates in five separate phases.
Burning Crusade Classic will be free for anyone with an active WoW subscription. Players who wish to stay within the Classic experience, however, will be able to stay on Classic-only servers if they wish. However, once you pick whether you want your character to stay in Classic or move on to Burning Crusade, they will be locked into that choice.
Another advantage if you want to play Burning Crusade but don’t have the time to level up a character in WoW Classic is a one-time boost to get you to Level 58. This is only available on a once-per-account basis, so as to avoid it being exploited. Allegedly there will also be a paid service that allows you to clone a character so you can play them in both Classic and Burning Crusade. So it appears that Blizzard is really making the effort to account for all the things Classic players may want to do before Burning Crusade is released sometime later this year.
Source: World of Warcraft