World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Pre-Patch Release Date Confirmed
Aaron Mickunas
World of Warcraft‘s next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, is right around the corner with a confirmed release date of Aug. 13.
Just like Legion‘s release in 2016, Battle for Azeroth will have pre-expansion content, called the pre-patch, doled out a bit before the official release date. This essentially serves as a bridge between expansions that ramps up the new plot and builds excitement. Before Legion, demons invaded parts of Azeroth, and players could band together to fight them off in various parts of Azeroth.
This expansion’s pre-patch will include very exciting scenarios, such as the destruction of Darnassus’ Teldrassil, the Night Elves’ sacred world tree, and the Alliance’s siege of Lordaeron, headquarters of Sylvanas’ Forsaken army. These pre-patch events will include other content, too, in areas around both of these major zones, such as Darkshore and Tirisfall Glades.
Throughout these scenarios, we’ll learn who really starts off hostility in this new war between the Horde and Alliance. It’s clear that King Anduin Wrynn wants to lay siege to Lordaeron, but the expansion’s beta has been largely vague on exactly how Teldrassil goes up in flames, leaving a lot of room for speculation.
These very dramatic encounters have Warcraft‘s massive playerbase very excited to dive in, but Blizzard has yet to confirm the exact dates of when this pre-patch will actually arrive. Fortunately, we have a pretty good idea.
During a press event at Blizzard’s headquarters in California this April, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas mentioned that Patch 8.0 would be deployed on a similar schedule to past expansions, according to Warcraft news site Wowhead. He did mention, however, not to quote him on that information, so there’s a chance it could be totally different.
Assuming it does follow past releases, though, it will probably launch four to six weeks before the full release, which places it somewhere between July 3 and July 17. We can narrow it down a little more, though, as Wowhead points out that July 4 being a national holiday in the United States means it probably won’t release that week.
This means that the most likely release dates for Battle for Azeroth’s pre-patch are likely sometime between July 10 and July 17, which is only a couple of weeks away. Time to get grinding, because time is officially running out to prep for the expansion.
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