Dragonflight will be the new expansion for World of Warcraft. But when is the release? When can we finally explore the Dragon Isles?
The reveal of the next expansion Dragonflight for World of Warcraft was relatively well received by players. However, alongside all the information about the new continent “Dragon Isles”, the Evoker of the Dracthyr, or dragon riding, a crucial piece of information was completely missing: the release date of Dragonflight.
That is quite unusual.
When is a realistic release date for Dragonflight? Although Blizzard has not yet revealed an official release date for WoW: Dragonflight, one can already make some speculations.
Because we already know that Shadowlands will still receive a “Season 4”. The current Season 3 has only been running for a few months and is likely to continue for a while longer.
If we roughly estimate that Season 3 will last at least until July and Season 4 will also take at least another 5-6 months, then we are already in the year 2023. The earliest release date would thus be the first quarter of 2023.
If there are delays or if the developers want to take more time – which would probably do WoW good – it could also be the second quarter, i.e. the period from April to June 2023.
If you want to play the new WoW expansion before the launch, you should sign up for the Dragonflight beta.
Why is the absence of the date unusual? As a rule, the announcement of a new expansion of World of Warcraft goes almost seamlessly with the possibility of pre-ordering the add-on. This was not the case with Dragonflight. The situation is quite puzzling, as the preorder items already appear to be included in the game data of patch 9.2 on the live servers.
So why wouldn’t Blizzard start the pre-sales immediately and take advantage of the hype of the announcement to secure the money of the preorder fans right away?
It can only be speculated about that, but one assumption is particularly close at hand:
Blizzard has not yet planned an exact release date and is not even roughly sure when the expansion will be released.
That seems to be the most obvious answer and would also fit well with another fact: In some countries, Blizzard – and all other providers of digital goods – are legally required to provide a delivery date. If that is not possible, it can lead to problems, as was already the case with Warcraft III: Reforged.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that Blizzard wants to tie the pre-order of Dragonflight to another game. After all, the highly anticipated “Warcraft Mobile” is set to be announced in May. It could at least be conceivable that Blizzard wants to engage in a little “cross-promotion” and link the pre-order of Dragonflight to bonuses or beta access to the mobile game.
Complete certainty will only come once Blizzard opens the pre-order for Dragonflight. We will, of course, report on it as soon as that happens.
