Everything we know about World of Warcraft's next expansion

Looking for details on the next World of Warcraft expansion? The official announcement isn't due until April 19 but that doesn't mean we don't have ideas on where the next major update will take us. There's another patch arriving before then and we're looking forward to learning more about the upcoming expansion with a great deal of hope.

As is the case with big announcements, there have been leaks that are pretty persuasive, considering their source is apparently Blizzard itself. I'll go into more detail about that below, so click away now if you want to avoid spoilers. Without further ado, here's what we know about World of Warcraft's next expansion, a possible release date, and where it might take us. 

When is World of Warcraft's next expansion release date? 

While we know we're getting the announcement of World of Warcraft's new expansion on April 19, we can only speculate about the release date at this time.

The final Shadowlands patch, the 9.2.5 update, is currently on the PTR (public test realm) so we're expecting it to launch somewhere around July or August. That would mean we shouldn't expect the new expansion to land until the end of 2022 at the very earliest, though a release date for the beginning of 2023 seems more likely.

Historically, most expansions have launched between August and December, the only exception being Wrath of the Lich King, which arrived in January back in 2007.

Of course, I'll update this guide as soon as Blizzard gives us more information.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight leaks are convincing 

At the beginning of April, Wowhead spotted strings in the public code on the official site for "WoW Dragonflight" pre-orders, including Base, Heroic, and Epic editions. It also seems that the "dragonflight.blizzard.com" web certifications have been registered.

At around the same time, several Redditors began sharing this image (see below) showing Alexstrasza, and what looks like Wrathion in his dragon form—along with the new World of Warcraft: Dragonflight logo. 

As Alexstrasza is known as the Life-Binder, and guardian of all life in Azeroth, it would make a nice contrast to the death-focused realm of the Shadowlands. We saw quite a bit of Wrathion and the dragon aspects towards the end of Battle for Azeroth, in our fight against N'zoth, so it would be good to catch up with them when we return to the world of the living. Also, dragons are just cool, so what's not to like?

came_across_this_pic_hopefully_its_legit from r/wow

It's not the first time the dragon theme has been suggested as the next expansion, either. The Dragon Pack, a bundle that offers various dragon mounts and pets, was offered in the game's shop at the end of 2021, leading a Reddit user to speculate about the theme of the next expansion several months ago.

And if the leak turns out to be correct, we'll finally get to visit the Dragon Isles. This location was originally intended to be part of the original World of Warcraft, though the area was never used. It was eventually removed during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. 

What about Sylvanas? 

She'll probably be too tied up with grinding her (endless) weekly Maw quest to pay much attention to the next expansion, sadly.