WoW Hardcore? Blizzard might be bringing a highly-requested mode to Classic

A new way to play WoW.

Onyxia's Lair in World of Warcraft
Image via Blizzard Entertainment

Hungry to play Classic, World of Warcraft players have gathered on Classic-era servers over the past couple of months to start their own unique community: Hardcore WoW. Although the community has been rapidly growing, players have been begging Blizzard Entertainment for designated Hardcore servers—and the latest leaks suggest their wishes might come true.

Recommended Videos

WoW news site and database Wowhead revealed today that in the Blizzard interface source code for Dragonflight Patch 10.1, there are a couple of warnings with “Hardcore” in the name. 

Originally, this was discovered by Twitter user Meorawr and then tweeted by a user under the name Solanya on March 10.

The Hardcore community is currently populating the progressed Classic-era servers that stayed up after the release of The Burning Crusade in June 2021. The principle of this player function is simple—you level your character normally, but when you die, you delete the character and start anew. You also can’t trade with other players, buy items or materials from the auction house, or use any type of resurrection like Soulstones.

To start your journey on the Hardcore realms, you’ll need to install a special addon called Hardcore that keeps track of your deaths and auction and mailbox activities. 

If you want to join the Hardcore community before Blizzard potentially releases the official version, you can read more about it on the Classic Hardcore site or you can join the Classic-era servers Bloodsail Buccaneers (NA) and Hydraxian Waterlords (Europe).

Author
Image of Izabela Tomakic
Izabela Tomakic
Staff Writer & World of Warcraft lead. Izabela has a long history with writing and games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, and The Sims. Before finding her home at Dot Esports in 2021, Izabela was an English teacher and a freelancer at Hotspawn, GGRecon, and Gameranx. In her free time, you’ll find her writing novels, wandering Azeroth, or inting on Summoner’s Rift.