World of Warcraft's latest expansion now has a release date, and it's not too far off.
World of Warcraft's most recent expansion, The War Within, was fairly decent. Although the story remains somewhat garbled, the raids, dungeons, and general gameplay loop has been very solid. The new "Delves" feature with its soloable dungeons and challenging solo boss tiers has added a way for casual players to participate in endgame, and a variety of quality of life improvements and tweaks made the game feel smoother for veterans.
World of Warcraft: Midnight adds a variety of new features. The first and most major is Player Housing. Those who pre-order the game can get early access to player housing on December 2, 2025, allowing players to build their dream fantasy abode in either Horde or Alliance-themed areas. Furnishings will be available from a variety of sources, including in-game challenges, professions, achievements, in addition to via premium currency.
Other features include jungle-inspired elves the Haranir, as a playable race. A new "Prey" system will allow players to hunt bounties across Azeroth (and also risk being attacked by said bounty while out and about in the world.) The expansion takes place in a revamped region of Azeroth, bringing Silvermoon City to the modern game engine.
The various editions of the expansion come with a variety of preorder bonuses, outlined below.
Feature | |||
|---|---|---|---|
World of Warcraft: Midnight | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
World of Warcraft: The War Within | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Enhanced Level 80 Character Boost | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Housing Early Access† | Row 3 - Cell 1 | ✓ | ✓ |
Trader's Tender†† | 500 | 1000 | 2000 |
Lightning Dragonhawk (Flying Mount) | Row 5 - Cell 1 | ✓ | ✓ |
Lightbearer’s Diadem (Transmog Set) | Row 6 - Cell 1 | ✓ | ✓ |
Hopletaur (Pet) | Row 7 - Cell 1 | Row 7 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Doomhoof (Pet) | Row 8 - Cell 1 | Row 8 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Valorous Raiment (Transmog Set) | Row 9 - Cell 1 | Row 9 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Valorous Dragonhawk (Flying Mount) | Row 10 - Cell 1 | Row 10 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Valighty Saucer (Flying Mount) | Row 11 - Cell 1 | Row 11 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Light-touched Rookery (Decor)†† | Row 12 - Cell 1 | Row 12 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Void-corrupted Rookery (Decor)†† | Row 13 - Cell 1 | Row 13 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Light-touched Fountain (Decor)†† | Row 14 - Cell 1 | Row 14 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Void-corrupted Fountain (Decor)†† | Row 15 - Cell 1 | Row 15 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Paintings of Alleria, Turalyon, Anduin, and Xal'atath (Decor)†† | Row 16 - Cell 1 | Row 16 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Midnight Beta Access† | Row 17 - Cell 1 | Row 17 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
3 Days Midnight Early Access† | Row 18 - Cell 1 | Row 18 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
30 Days of Game Time | Row 19 - Cell 1 | Row 19 - Cell 2 | ✓ |
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of World of Warcraft: Midnight is a huge revamp to how addons and mods work. Blizzard will no longer allow UI mods that interact with gameplay elements, attempting to make the game fully playable even for users who don't want to download addons and mods.
For years, the game has essentially been balanced around the presence of mods, getting exponentially more complex to offset the convenience being injected by mods and addons. Blizzard wants to inject difficulty back into the game, focusing player's eyes back onto the gameplay environment rather than the UI. Indeed, one of the bosses in the new Midnight raid asks players to line up icons and symbols summoned by the boss.
To accommodate this change, Blizzard has also been reducing class complexity and buttons to reduce the necessity of UI addons in the first place. Some theorized this reduction in complexity was portents for an Xbox console version, but those theories were shot down by lead developer Ion Hazzikostas in an interview with us a few weeks ago.
The changes have led to huge playstyle alterations for almost every specialization in the game, representing a large investment from Blizzard to revamp and improve a variety of skills and abilities. I've quite enjoyed the changes to my warlock, but other classes seem to require a bit more love before the game goes live proper in March. Hopefully, the on-going beta test will lead to the changes everyone is hoping for.
World of Warcraft: Midnight has great features, but questions remain ...
Another controversial aspect of Midnight pertains to the game's writing. Honestly, World of Warcraft's writing has been under a microscope for some time at this point. Some hoped that the return of franchise co-creator Chris Metzen would lead to more consistency, but it hasn't materialized so far.
With World of Warcraft's patch cadence requiring more rapidity than ever to offset player subscription churn, it feels a bit like the writing quality has suffered as a result. Characters often seem to forget previous events, behave in uncharacteristic, un-established ways, and seem to allow old hatreds to die easily. I can't imagine it's easy maintaining the lore of literally hundreds of characters, but this is the challenge Blizzard has set for itself.
World of Warcraft: The War Within was supposed to be a story about the Earthen dwarves, the titans, and exploring Azeroth's cavernous regions. It ended up taking place, once again, in literal space, revolving around the void instead. The War Within leaves a range of under-explored and un-finished plot threads, much like Dragonflight before it, and Shadowlands before that.
👉 Best PCs for World of Warcraft
The Worldsoul Saga is set to span three expansions, with Midnight being the second act. I'm hopeful that Blizzard can bring the story into tighter coherency over the course of the plan, but the demand for more content, faster! seems to be undermining that effort to some degree.
It only matters if you care about the lore, though. The gameplay has arguably been in a better place than ever, with more things to do than ever. Blizzard has been hitting its stated roadmaps extremely well, while also giving players a large variety of content to digest in rapid fashion. We're still waiting for playable ogres ... though.
World of Warcraft: Midnight goes live on March 2, 2026 for Windows PC via Battle.net.
Black Friday 2025 | Quick Links
- The very best Black Friday deals from all categories
- Mini PC deals: up to 47% off tiny PCs
- GPU deals: early price drops on NVIDIA RTX before they go up
- Microsoft Surface deals: save up to $500 on premium PCs
- Xbox accessories: best deals on gadgets for your Xbox Series X|S and PC
- Gaming laptop deals: the best laptops for the best price
- Xbox controllers: our top picks for best controller deals
- Samsung monitors: the best Samsung display deals we've found
More Black Friday coverage - Microsoft Surface deals: save up to $500 on premium PCs
- Samsung monitors: the best Samsung display deals we've found
Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
