World of Warcraft Classic finally has a release date, and its coming relatively soon — the highly-anticipated re-release will go live worldwide on August 27, 2019. The remake of the early days of the world's most popular MMORPG has been a hot button topic for Blizzard fans ever since it was revealed as the answer to why Blizzard had been shutting down "vanilla" World of Warcraft servers so aggressively, and despite the ill-will some players held over that decision, the community at large has been extremely positive about Classic's potential.

World of Warcraft Classic isn't a remaster in the traditional sense, either. Everything about the project is being carefully curated by Blizzard to perfectly replicate a specific patch era in the game's history. That means the World of Warcraft Classic release will recreate bugs — at least the ones that weren't game-breaking — and will even feature the imbalanced class design that was a hallmark of the game's early years, when Blizzard was still figuring out the finer points of running a MMORPG that served millions of players daily.

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Blizzard made the announcement of the World of Warcraft Classic release on its official page, noting that the game will be live worldwide on August 27. The developer prefaced the reveal of the game's release schedule on August 27 by inviting players to "log in and experience the origins of World of Warcraft," a quote that sums up the core philosophy of a game that's looking to monetize nostalgia in a way few endeavors have tried previously. Blizzard also made another big announcement, revealing that World of Warcraft Classic testing will begin tomorrow in a focused, small-scale closed beta.

Blizzard also realizes that the launch of World of Warcraft Classic will be momentous, and the company is working hard to ensure that players' log-in experiences are smoother than when the game first launched way back in 2004, when servers were taxed and players had to spend literal days waiting to log in. Blizzard announced that the World of Warcraft Classic release will be prefaced by a two week period in which users will be able to create their characters. All that's required is an active subscription, and aspiring World of Warcraft Classic players will be able to create up to three characters.

The announcement of the World of Warcraft Classic release date is huge because fans were mostly expecting betas this summer, given how far along the game had progressed up until this point. Players will finally get a chance to go hands-on with the game they believe will represent better times in World of Warcraft's storied history and, judging by how many people are clamoring to get a shot at World of Warcraft Classic, a re-release — bugs and all — could be one of Blizzard's biggest game launches of this decade.

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Source: World of Warcraft