World of Warcraft’s 2026 roadmap shows us some unexpected surprises during Midnight

Continuing on a trend of transparency that started prior to Dragonflight, the World of Warcraft team today gave us a look at a 2026 roadmap that shows both the expected cadence of Midnight‘s content patches, as well as some new and exciting features and game modes and the return of an older feature that we haven’t seen outside of a single experiment during Battle for Azeroth. For anyone who thought maybe Blizzard was going to start getting predictable with their eight-week patch cadence going into the middle chapter of the Worldsoul Saga, read on to see what surprises are in store!

It’s worth noting that this roadmap doesn’t include a probable Season 3 — anything after patch 12.1.7, scheduled for autumn 2026, is still a mystery. The last season of an expansion is also the time Blizzard tends to drop surprises on us like Plunderstorm and the WoW Remixes (both ReMists and Lemix), so there’s even more to be seen in the future. However, what we have now looks like an incredibly promising 2026 full of things to keep us busy, entertained, and surprised.

What’s coming to World of Warcraft in 2026?

Though the expansion’s story remains under wraps, we have a good look at the content we can expect before BlizzCon in September.

Patch 12.0.1 kicks off the roadmap with Midnight‘s official launch — and it includes all things we know about, but just in case you needed to remember what all was in there, we’re looking at four new zones (taking you from level 80 to 90) making up the Midnight campaign, the Haranir allied race, the Prey system, ten new Delves with our new pal Valeera Sanguinar, eight new dungeons, and three new raids. Whew!

Patch 12.0.5 starts off strong by giving us both a story-relevant feature and a “just for fun” one. Void Assaults mark the strengthening of Void’s forces as they continue their assault on Azeroth; you can expect to fight them off in various places in our world now, no doubt for a variety of strength-gaining rewards. On the flip side, Decor Duel is a “prop hunt” style gameplay mode; if you haven’t played a prop hunt in any other kind of game, one team gets to hide in the environment by taking the form of ordinary decor — we see a gnome disguising herself as a lamp, a charcuterie board, and a Silvermoon winged chaise — while the other team tries to hunt them down. This will almost certainly reward some decor, and just watching a chaise run around to try to find a better hiding spot is absolutely worth the time.

Patch 12.0.7 continues the story that started in Midnight Season 1, and brings back something we haven’t seen in a while: a single-boss, inter-season raid! Sporefall looks like it will be bringing us lots of fungus-themed monsters, including those weird little chattering Fungarians (what is their deal?) and things we’re used to like bog striders and sporbits. Patch 12.0.7 will also escalate the Void Assaults, as well as adding new story and quests — no doubt to lead into the next patch — and bringing back Turbulent Timeways, cementing these as a feature of the X.7 patches at this point.

Patch 12.1 marks the beginning of Season 2. The theme and location is still tightly and officially under wraps, despite speculation from the community; however, it brings the bevy of content we’re used to from the big number patches: a new zone, new raid, new dungeon, new delves, a new world boss, and updates to housing, social features, and UI updates. There was mention of an update to the friend list, and I’m sure anyone who’s not happy with the state of the user interface now will be happy to see that Blizzard isn’t leaving it alone with where it sits now.

On the timeline, all of these patches fall prior to September 12th — the return of BlizzCon in 2026 — so that’s what’s coming beforehand. What’s after?

What’s coming to World of Warcraft after BlizzCon 2026?

The end of the year brings a new mystery game mode and a new content type: Labyrinths.

Patch 12.1.5 is the first patch after BlizzCon 2026; on top of yet another new single-boss raid (this one tying into the overarching Midnight story more than Sporefall) and the generic “new content and systems” also bring us the first of two new content types in this expansion: Labyrinths. We don’t know a lot about this other than that it’s a melding of Delves and the “megadungeon” concept — a sprawling, expansive environment that can be explored all at once or a little bit at a time, to really expand upon this new pillar of gameplay that has been pretty widely embraced by the player base.

Patch 12.1.7 is the last patch we have info about on this roadmap. This one promises some of the same things as the prior X.7 patch: story and quests leading into patch 12.2 and the second Turbulent Timeways of Midnight. It looks like we’re also going to get more holiday updates at this point; it’s nice to see that these won’t be left to languish for years anymore. However, excitingly, 12.1.7 also seems to be when we’ll be getting the new standalone mode (ala Plunderstorm) — all we know about this one is that it’s spooky, and that it looks like it might be in Drustvar. We’ll have to wait and see what this mode is for sure, though the odds are good we’ll be getting a look at it at BlizzCon.

After that, the roadmap ends — but that’s a lot to cram into one year! It looks like Midnight is going to be just as packed as The War Within, with a variety of things to do and see all over Azeroth in our fight against the forces of Xal’atath and the Void. While we can’t see all the details from 12.1 onward, it’s still easy to see that the Blizzard team has a lot of innovation up their sleeves, ready to unleash on players.