World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Dragonflight, has been revealed by Blizzard Entertainment. The expansion, which will be the ninth of WoW’s 18-year history, does not yet have a release date, although the beta is currently available to be opted into on the official WoW website.
Dragonflight was unofficially leaked earlier this month when WoW coverage site Wowhead found mentions of the expansion’s title in the source code of the official WoW website. With today’s announcement of the expansion, the leaks from earlier in this month have been confirmed.
Dragonflight, which is the first expansion to be revealed outside of BlizzCon since Legion in 2015, will add countless new features and systems to the game, including a new region consisting of five zones, the Dragon Isles. Additionally, Dragonflight will introduce a new playable race, the Dracthyr, as well as a new class, the Evoker. For the first time in WoW‘s history, the new class and race will be exclusive to each other: only Dracthyr can play as Evokers and only Evokers can be made as Dracthyr.
WoW’s level cap, which was “squished” down to 60 from 120 during Shadowlands, is being increased to 70 upon the release of Dragonflight. Dracthyr Evokers will begin at level 58 and they’ve been classified by Blizzard as a “Hero Class.”
Although there is no release date for Dragonflight as of yet, the fact that a fourth season of Shadowlands is set to begin later this year makes it possible that the game’s next expansion won’t be released until 2023, potentially making Shadowlands one of the longest-running expansions in WoW’s history. Across WoW’s lifespan, only three expansions—Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria, and Battle for Azeroth—have lasted longer than two years.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight does not yet have a release date. Additionally, no dates for the game’s alpha or beta testing phases have been revealed by Blizzard at time of writing.
