The BlizzCon 2026 World of Warcraft: What’s Next Panel Transcript covers new content for the Midnight Patch 12.2: Eclipse and a few details about the last chapter of the World Saga, The Last Titan.
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BlizzCon 2026 World of Warcraft: What’s Next Panel Transcript
Ion Hazzikostas: Hello again. Long time no see. It is amazing to be up here, actually able to at last talk about what’s somehow both the best-kept and worst-kept secret of the summer. And shout out to the classic Wow subReddit. No, it’s not too late to start World of Warcraft: Forever.
This is a story that really began nine year ago in these halls when we announced WoW Classic to the world. Then a couples years after that, of course, we welcomed you in, dive back into Azeroth to experience it as it was in the beginning.
And Millions came in and settled in and began tackling Onyxia and Ragnaros, leveling up to 60, really re-experiencing that journey, but the conversations naturally started to emerge around what would come next. And those conversations grew louder. Many people, of course, hoped to continue on into the Burning Crusade and a chance to go back through the Dark Portal and show Illidan just how prepared we’ve all become after 20 years. The min-maxing next level.
And of course, that is what came to pass. But there was another group even back then in 2020 or so, a group of dreamers, people for whom the vanilla game was just about the perfect MMO. If not for already being solved and already being experienced. They didn’t want to leave behind that world grounded in the immediate aftermath of Warcraft III and begin a journey forward through the timeline. They didn’t want to replace their hard-won raid epics with greens from Zangarmarsh. They didn’t want to go from the sprawling expanse of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to an Outland that you could fly across in just a few minutes on an epic mount.
“What if we could stay at level 60?” They asked. And so did we. What if we could build some new content and tell new stories in that immersive world? And what if we could make min specs even if just a tiny bit viable? Paladins, talking to you here. But this was 2020. And the reality is that the team that we had at the time, the development pipeline that we had at the time were something that had been purpose-built to restore and curate an old version of the game, not to add to it, not to build new things.
And so for a time, that dream stayed a dream. But that ember of an idea smoldered over the months and years to follow. And it took hold within the Classic team as well. People on the team would come forward left and right, pitching versions of what it might look like to add content to change that vanilla game.
And that led us to 2023, when we decided to test the waters with a certain experiment, also announced right here. Season of Discovery was an experiment on many levels. SOD was awesome, but it was deliberately pushing boundaries. And we pretty much said that outright at the time because it was a time-limited seasonal experience. It gave us a chance to find the limits of how much change was too much change. How far could we go before things started to feel like they didn’t belong in that world or alongside those philosophies? But we did make a bunch of new quests, new items, new class abilities, even all-new dungeons and raids like Karazhan Crypt and the Scarlet Enclave, and we sure found those limits, but along the way we learned a ton of valuable lessons.
And probably a couple of years ago, by the middle of 2024, looking at how it had gone, we were certain that it was not only possible, but compelling to pursue this vision. From Season of Discovery, we learned what worked and what didn’t. We learned how to build content 20 years later that felt like it belonged alongside the original stuff, and in the meantime, we’d absorbed years of experience of how players today approach the classic game, which is different in many ways from how it was back in 2005, when the internet was a different place and knowledge was a different thing.
But most of all, we heard loud and clear from everyone in Season of Discovery that they didn’t want just a temporary season, but instead a forever home where their investments would be meaningful or their journey could continue forward. And so here we are. Thank you to all those dreamers along the way who kept this idea alive and gave the team inspiration over the years. It’s been a lot of fun over the last year, reading and watching all the online discourse about what Classic+ could be, should be, and definitely shouldn’t be. But now let me turn it over to the team so they can tell you exactly what it is.
| BLIZZCON 2026 WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WHAT'S NEXT PANEL TRANSCRIPT | ||||
| 1. Intro | 2. Design Pillars | 3. New Zones | 4. Cultures | |
