Where does WoW Classic go from here?

This week, Wrath of the Lich King Classic Phase 4 arrives and will bring players new and old in a direct showdown with the Lich King himself atop Icecrown Citadel. Ahead of Phase 4 going live, The World of Warcraft YouTube Channel posted a video about everything coming to Wrath Classic in patch 3.4.3, AKA Phase 4. One of the things that stood out to me was Phase 4 being referred to as “the final phase of the expansion” and I started to think about what that means, or could mean, for the future World of Warcraft Classic.

Wrath Classic has kept a nearly identical release cadence that mirrored this original Wrath of the Lich King release schedule, albeit at a faster pace, with the content in each phase being identical across both games. However, in this patch 3.4.3 video, Ruby Sanctum is lightly referred to as extra source of gear but instead of receiving its own phase release, it will probably just come in a small, future patch. That leaves me with one question — where does WoW Classic go from here?

Next month, both World of Warcraft and WoW Classic will have upcoming content featured at BlizzCon and it’s all but a certainty we’ll learn about the future direction of both games. Depending on how you look at it, WoW Classic has an easier answer, which is obviously Cataclysm Classic. I’m a little less convinced it’ll be that simple, however. I didn’t play WoW when Cataclysm was the latest expansion, but I do know that Cataclysm, fundamentally and physically, changed WoW. To undo all of the work that went into WoW Classic for content that can (partially) be accessed through Chromie in retail doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense to me.

The way I see it, there are a few options with where Classic can go from here:

• Cataclysm Classic is announced. If this is what happens, I think it would best happen on its own realm/server and players copy their characters over.
• Instead of Cata Classic, Blizzard focuses on future Season of Mastery-type content releases for WoW Classic, TBC Classic, and Wrath Classic. We know that Blizzard is working on more Mastery content because it was referred to when Classic Hardcore was announced, but we don’t know what content will be part of it.
• The end of WoW Classic content releases. I don’t think this will happen because of Classic’s popularity but never say never.

It’ll be interesting to see what direction Blizzard will take WoW Classic from here. I’m curious to hear/read where you think WoW Classic goes from here, so let us know in the comments below!