When will WoW Classic Phase 3 be released?

WoW Classic’s launch went surprisingly well, after a few mishaps when it came to name reservation and queue times for the popular realms. Since then, Blizzard has altered its previously announced content phase release schedule by splitting Phase 2 into two parts and releasing Dire Maul before the rest. So what about Phase 3?

Phase 3 will be released soon, and like Phase 2 it will launch in two segments:

• December 10: PVP battlegrounds Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley  (and probably that key ring!)
• Early 2020: Darkmoon Faire and Blackwing Lair

Blizzard said in a forum post that the response from the community to the Honor system prompted them to release the two battlegrounds ahead of the PVE content. And it seems that — for the most part — people are happy to delve into PVP earlier, if only to have something to do at max level.

This faster launch sets a precedent for how soon Blizzard is willing to release content. The last phase content was released on November 12, and the one before that was on October 15. That gives us roughly monthly updates, so we can probably expect the complete Phase 3 content to be out in early January. It’s unclear why this is the chosen time frame. It could be anything from Blizzard monitoring how fast people are engaging with the new stuff, or out of a fear that the game will lose relevance too fast. It does make you wonder what will happen once they’ve reached the final phase.

Putting aside the unknowns for now though, it’s a good sign that Blizzard is willing to move around the content to keep players engaged. This isn’t something you see in the live game; probably because the schedules are carefully planned as the content itself is created. With the old game, everything is relatively finished. Blizzard has a good idea of how players will react because we’ve done this all before.