Blizzard opened pre-orders for physical Midnight Collector’s Edition. Here’s what’s inside.

During the World of Warcraft Midnight Deep Dive, Blizzard quietly added pre-orders for the Midnight Collector’s Edition to the US Blizzard Gear Store.

At time of writing, this item isn’t currently available on either the UK or EU Blizzard Gear Stores, and ordering from the US store only allows for delivery to addresses in some locations in North and South America. For the previous expansion, the Collector’s Edition was only available through the Blizzard Gear Store, with the exception of in Oceanic regions where they negotiated a deal with a retail franchise to sell locally due to the shipping costs to Australia and New Zealand. EB Games has opened up pre-orders for Australian customers for A$199.00, and for New Zealand Customers for NZ$219.00.

Coming in at a hefty US $139.00, it comes in the same bookshelf form factor as previous expansions, and comes with the following:

• Includes World of Warcraft: Midnight Epic Edition Game Key
• Exclusive Physical Bonuses:
  • Midnight Hardcover Art Book,
  • Midnight Collector’s Pin, and
  • a replica of the Dark Heart
• Includes 3 Days of Midnight Early Access and 30 Days of World of Warcraft Game Time

Plus, all the things included in the Midnight Epic Edition In-Game Content:

• Housing Items: Light-Infused Rotunda, Void-Corrupted Rotunda, Light-Infused Fountain, Void-Corrupted Fountain, and paintings of Alleria, Turalyon, Arator, and Xal’atath
• Hopeflutter and Doomfeathers pets
• Lightstrider and Voidstrider Raiment armor transmog sets
• Voidlight Surger, Lightwing Dragonhawk, and Voidwing Dragonhawk mounts

The Dark Heart is an item whose lore has been threaded through Warcraft lore since we first encountered it in Dragonflight. The replica has been constructed with an LED light embedded in the resin gem to allow it to light up.

Typically the Collector’s Edition boxes have been shipped out within a few days prior to the expansion launch date. This creates a paradox — their biggest fans potentially don’t have access to the expansion until launch day or shortly afterwards, when the Collector’s Edition includes early access to in-game features as part of the bundle. Based on previous expansions, Blizzard’s model for addressing this is for customers to purchase a digital edition, and to then be given a credit to their account for either the standard version, or the equivalent to the digital license they purchased. This credit can be used for future purchases from the in-game store.

We have not been given any confirmation as to whether this will be the pattern this time around, though it’s reasonable to expect it will as they have received considerable backlash on this topic in the past.