The next expansion of World of Warcraft starts in January – at least the gigantic “Pre-Patch” will go live then.
Although we suspected from data mining and Blizzard’s general release cadence that the Pre-Patch for the upcoming expansion World of Warcraft Midnight must be released in January, we now have certainty. Blizzard has officially announced that the era of the 12th expansion of the MMORPG will begin in less than 5 weeks.
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What has been announced? In a blog post by Blizzard, the developers announced that the Pre-Patch 12.0 of World of Warcraft will be released on January 21, 2026. As usual, due to time differences and different maintenance schedules, this will be half a day earlier on American realms, on January 20, 2026. From then on, the era of “The War Within” officially ends, and the major innovations of Midnight are already live.
What is already in the Pre-Patch? Although the Pre-Patch does not yet contain the new zones and quests, Update 12.0 already includes a large portion of the extensive revisions and innovations that belong to the expansion. These include the following features:
- The Devourer Demon Hunter, the new specialization
- Void Elves can become Demon Hunters
- Many classes are being revamped and have new talents and abilities
- Items and attributes will be “squished”, all numbers will be reduced
- The interface will be revamped
- The new transmog system goes live
- PvP gets a new training mode
- The pre-event starts (with a one-week delay)
- The level event “Winds of Mysterious Fortune” starts once again
Aside from that, many of the addons may no longer work with the Pre-Patch, as Blizzard drastically limits functionality and offers its own solutions when necessary.
The weeks between the Pre-Patch and the actual release of Midnight are therefore perfect for familiarizing yourself with the innovations so that you can launch into the expansion well prepared later.
When will Midnight be released? The official release date for Midnight is March 3, 2026, so almost exactly 6 weeks later. From then on, all buyers of the expansion can dive into the new areas of Midnight, experience the continuation of the “Tale of the Worldsoul Saga”, and climb the 10 new levels up to level 90. However, note that pre-orders of the Epic Edition can start a few days earlier. They get access at least 3 days before – that would be no later than February 28, but maybe even on February 27.
