World Of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic Launches On June 1

Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic launches on June 1 at 3PM PT / 6 PM ET (June 2 at 12 AM CEST), but there's an important decision to make before that.

On the official World of Warcraft site, Blizzard outlines the choice players must make prior to the expansion's launch. On May 18, a pre-expansion patch will drop, setting the groundwork for how players move to Burning Crusade Classic. Through the Character Clone feature, players can choose to go straight to the expansion or stay on vanilla WoW Classic servers that remain at Shadow of the Necropolis patch 1.13.6. Characters created before the launch of Burning Crusade Classic will automatically be cloned to their respective Classic era realm. Players can pay a fee to activate their created character on both realms.

The release date isn't surprising. A pop-up posted to the ClassicWow subreddit revealed that Burning Crusade Classic was targeting a June 1 global debut. Even the expansion was leaked by Blizzard itself ahead of its official reveal; the company published a press release containing information planned for BlizzConline.

The Burning Crusade is World of Warcraft's first expansion that launched in 2007. While Blizzard has been steadily updating World of Warcraft with new features, the company has been catering to its retro audience through the Classic realm that now will take players through The Dark Portal. Players will be able to choose between playing as a Blood Elf or Draenei in Burning Crusade Classic, with content releasing in phases.

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic is included with any WoW subscription.