World Of Warcraft - Page 5

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, first released on 23 November 2004 for Windows and Mac. Set in the Warcraft universe first established by Warcraft: Orcs and Humans in 1994, it launched to immediate critical and commercial success, reaching one million subscribers within its first month and peaking at 12 million subscribers during the Cataclysm expansion in 2010. 

The Warcraft franchise has generated an estimated $15 billion in lifetime revenue through 2025, with WoW alone sustaining one of the longest-running subscription models in gaming history. Blizzard stopped publishing official subscriber figures in 2015, but third-party tracking estimates put the combined player base across all versions of the game at between five and ten million monthly players in 2026, depending on the time of year and the expansion cycle.

Today, World of Warcraft exists across three distinct experiences. Retail, the live, continuously updated version of the game, is currently in its eleventh expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight, released on 2 March 2026 as the second chapter of the Worldsoul Saga. Midnight's launch was the most-played expansion opening since Shadowlands in 2020, with peak concurrent player counts exceeding 500,000 during its first week, and the expansion introduces player housing, expanded solo Delves, and a raised level cap of 90. 

WoW Classic recreates the original game as it existed at launch and in its early expansions, running on progression servers that have advanced sequentially through vanilla, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria, with Anniversary Edition servers and Hardcore permadeath servers offering additional ways to engage with the historical game. 

WoW Forever, announced in September 2026 and launching 4 November 2026, is a permanent third track described by Blizzard as neither Retail nor Classic, beginning in the original Azeroth with a Classic-Plus ruleset featuring new class designs, new race and class combinations, a new playable race, optional modern and classic visual presets, and an ongoing content roadmap with no planned end date.