Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct: Everything Announced

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Blizzard just concluded the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, a nearly hour-long presentation featuring numerous updates from across the Warcraft franchise – almost like a miniature BlizzCon. We’ve heard about World of Warcraft’s next major update, announcements of the next expansion, up-to-date updates to World of Warcraft Classic, several long-awaited remasters, and planned updates for both Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble.

If you missed the Direct, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything Blizzard showed off today during the 30th anniversary of Warcraft Direct:

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World of Warcraft: The War Within The next major update has been revealed

First up is the retail release of World of Warcraft, which is currently nearing the end of the first main story arc of The War Within expansion. Today we took a look at the expansion’s first major patch, titled “Undermine(d),” which will take players to the underground goblin capital of Undermine for the first time ever.

The update, scheduled for release early next year, will include a up-to-date customizable vehicle, a up-to-date story, a up-to-date arena map, a up-to-date dungeon, two up-to-date caves, a up-to-date raid, and a number of other updates. You can read more about everything planned for version 11.1, Undermine(d), here.

Player housing will finally appear in World of Warcraft: Midnight

At the very end of the presentation, Blizzard gave us a surprising announcement of “one more thing” about the next planned expansion: Midnight. While it’s still a long way to midnight, today we learned that it will include a long-awaited feature: the player’s apartment. No details were given on this topic in today’s presentation, but we expect to hear more overdue next summer when Blizzard fully unveils Midnight to the world.

World of Warcraft: Classic is coming to Pandaria

As expected, World of Warcraft Classic continues its expansion, with Blizzard announcing that it will be ported to Mists of Pandaria in 2025. But for those who may be frustrated by Classic’s seeming race to catch up with retail through World of Warcraft’s expansion history, Blizzard will also be releasing up-to-date, “vanilla” Classic servers on November 21. The realms will feature fresh PvE, PvP and Hardcore servers, all of which will slowly follow the Classic update cycle, with the Molten Core raid starting a few weeks after they launch. Additionally, the PvE and PvP (sorry, Hardcore) realms will eventually migrate to The Burning Crusade Classic, starting the expansion process all over again.

Warcraft I and II are being remastered

To kick off today’s showcase, Blizzard announced that today will feature eye-popping remasters of both Warcraft I and II. These are remasters, not remakes, and will feature fully remastered graphics as well as a number of quality of life features. Warcraft II will feature multiplayer, and all legacy custom maps will be compatible and playable.

Additionally, Blizzard is releasing a up-to-date patch for Warcraft III: Reforged that includes graphical changes and various other quality of life changes that will hopefully improve the experience. All three games will be available as Battle Chest, with elastic pricing based on the games you already have in your library.

Hearthstone will have a crossover with… Starcraft?!

In the tavern, we learned about Hearthstone’s upcoming development plan for 2025. Hearthstone begins the up-to-date year by combining the game with another Blizzard game: Starcraft.

2025 will kick off with a StarCraft-themed mini-kit, featuring themes and powers unique to all three StarCraft factions: Protoss, Zerg, and Terran. This will be followed by the first expansion in 2025, themed after the Emerald Dream, followed by a return to Un’Goro Crater in The Shrouded City expansion. Hearthstone will end the year with a time-themed expansion titled Heroes of Time, featuring everyone’s favorite time traveler, Chromie.

Warcraft Rumble is coming to PC

Warcraft Rumble will soon introduce up-to-date leaders for the divided factions in a up-to-date update. These leaders belong to two families at once, not just one. The newly added leaders of the split faction will include Orgrim Doomhammer, Malfurion Stormrage, and Anub’arak, while other characters such as Sylvanas will gain a second faction in addition to the current one.

But most importantly, the Warcraft Rumble mobile game is celebrating its first birthday by breaking free from the limitations of our phones. Blizzard announced today that it will be coming to PC soon, with the beta launching on December 10.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Her posts can be found on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Have a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

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