The big patch 10.0 of World of Warcraft is coming in October, with the release of Dragonflight in November – that is what a leak suggests that seems credible.
Many players in the World of Warcraft community are worried that WoW: Dragonflight will be released too early. A few months ago, when it was mentioned that Dragonflight would be released in 2022, there was a lot of skepticism. However, it seems that we won’t have to wait until December, but can actually start in November – the pre-patch is even expected to arrive earlier.
What does the leak say? According to the leak, the pre-patch 10.0, which expands the game with the new talent system and other functionalities of Dragonflight, is set to go live on October 25, 2022 (for us, that would be October 26) – so in just a little over 2 months.
The official release of Dragonflight would then be on November 28, 2022 – so in just a little over 3 months.
This would lead to a fairly long “pre-patch” phase of 5 weeks, in which players can already play with the new talent system and very likely even try out the new Dracthyr already.
Where does the leak come from? The leak is allegedly based on an internal document. The image (via wowhead) first circulated in the subreddit of World of Warcraft and was later picked up and heavily discussed by community sites like wowhead. There is no exact origin for the image or associated “leaker” – the original image in the subreddit has since been deleted. It is not unusual that there is no named leaker, as such information is often kept confidential, and those who share such documents beforehand often risk their job.
The leak gains credibility especially because it appeared a few hours before the release of the schedule for Wrath of the Lich King Classic and correctly predicted the date of the pre-patch – August 30. Since this happened before Blizzard’s official announcement, at least this statement is correct and adds significantly more credibility to the entire leak.
In an earlier interview, WoW’s Game Director, Ion Hazzikostas, said that they aim for a duration of 2 weeks for the pre-patch, but that could have changed. After all, the Dracthyr in the Dragonflight alpha recently received legendary Shadowlands items. This suggests that the developers indeed plan to allow players to play the Dracthyr in Shadowlands for a while longer.
However, please keep in mind that this could still be a fake that simply guessed well – that is always the risk with leaks of this nature.
How likely is that? Even though the release date sounds quite early now, it could indeed make sense. A release in late November would have the advantage that the first raid and dungeon season could start in mid-December, giving developers about 10 days to roll out bug fixes and patches. If the release were to take place during the “holiday season”, namely over Christmas and New Year, it would cause dissatisfaction among professional players, who would have to raid over the holidays, and many developers at Blizzard would be tied up, who also wouldn’t go home.
However, we will likely find out if the leak holds true in the coming weeks when the alpha of Dragonflight transitions into beta and an official release date is finally established.
What do you think about this leak? Do you believe this date or is it too unlikely?
