World of Warcraft Classic: The Burning Crusadeis currentlyin the last tier of the expansionand the next expansion,Wrath of the Lich King,has been announced. Blizzard announced in a blue post on its forums that fresh realms will be added with the release of theWrath of the Lich Kingpre-patch.
World of Warcraft Classiclaunched on Jul 04, 2025 to swarms of players excited to journey through the original iteration of the game.World of Warcraft Classicis currently on its first expansion,The Burning Crusade. On July 30, 2025 the second expansion,Wrath of the Lich King, was officially announced by Blizzard.
RELATED:World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Board Game Based on Pandemic Releases
The closed Beta ofWorld of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich Kingis expected to begin in the summer of 2022. In a blue post on Blizzard forums, developer Kaivax states “With the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King Classic pre-patch, we intend to open ‘Fresh Start’ realms for players who wish to experience starting a new character and playing alongside a new community of others.” AllClassicandThe BurningCrusadezones and dungeons will be available for players to level through together but the newest continent, Northrend, will be fully locked until the official release ofWrath of the Lich King. Players on these fresh servers will also be unable tocreate a Death Knightunless they already have a level 55 character on the server.
There is currently no set date for theWrath of the Lich Kingpre-patch.World of Warcraft Classichas been struggling with faction balance on servers since the beginning and that issue has only been exasperated inTheBurning Crusade. The addition of fresh realms will allow players who want to return specifically forWrath of the Lich Kingto do so without being at a massive disadvantage compared to veterans ofWorld of Warcraft Classic. Speculation aboutWrath of the Lich Kinghas been rampant within the community since therelease ofWorld of Warcraft Classic: Season of Mastery.
Because players will also be unable to boost or transfer characters to these realms for 90 days it’s clear that Blizzard’s intent is to create a community for returning players. It will also give players a chance who want to level “alt” characters of a different faction a place to do so without being forced to do it at a massive disadvantage on already heavily populated servers. Blizzardrecently announced that it will be merging realmson the North American and European Server groups in an attempt to combat this faction imbalance problem.
Many players could see this as counter-intuitive, however. With faction imbalance and dying servers rampant onWorld of Warcraft Classic: The Burning Crusade, adding more realms might only fuel the problem that Blizzard has only recently tried to correct. There’s no guarantee that these servers won’t be imbalanced themselves or eventually die out on their own. It’s very likely that players will be leveling on these fresh servers to pass the time until the release, and then simply return to their main servers.
World of Warcraft Classic: The Burning Crusadeis available to play with a subscription on PC.
MORE:World of Warcraft Developers Discuss Struggles Challenges of Bringing Wrath of the Lich King to Classic
