From the roadmaps of what's ahead for modern World of Warcraft and Classic World of Warcraft, to claiming your own Dark Portal Housing decor item to set up in your own home, we've rounded up everything you need to know about the State of Azeroth.

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We're on the cusp of the Midnight expansion launch and all the stories that will be told as we defend Azeroth from the threat the Void presents. Beyond Midnight, players will be able to experience the third and final installment of the World Soul Saga with The Last Titan.

Beyond the looming darkness and perils players will face, there is also the call of home with Housing, offering a place to rest and express themselves creatively. This feature is twenty years in the making and we knew we had to deliver something that could grow and evolve over the years. Players with the Midnight expansion are already delving into this feature with Housing Early Access with the full launch just around the corner.

Introducing Azeroth Interiors

To shine a light on this new feature, we're bringing in some of the biggest creator names and best builders alike to go head-to-head in a delightful interior design competition! We're calling up six pairs of prominent creators from around the world to create a concept, execute on their ideas, and produce exemplary player houses worth coming home to.

You don't have to be a competitor to get in on the fun. Share your own Housing creations on social media by using the hashtag #AzerothInteriors.

Learn more about what's in store in our previously published article.

WoW Classic and Looking Ahead

Over the past six years, Classic has been an expression of love for the early years of WoW and bringing it to you in a variety of flavors. Between Hardcore, Seasonal, and Progression realms the community has shown us the ongoing potential of Classic are limitless. We take that to heart and we will continue to honor that.

Mists of Pandaria Classic

Today, Mists of Pandaria Classic continues in the original Classic realms with the next major milestone the release of the Escalation update in just a few weeks. It includes a new quest campaign, battleground, scenarios, and more.

Updates for Mists of Pandaria Classic will continue to be released over time as we have with previous expansions-with the Siege of Orgrimmar and the return of Timeless Isle later this year.

Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition

The launch of Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition is on our doorstep. Another round of Illidan taunts and Fel Reaver terror. You'll play through the chess event in Karazhan, face Magtheridon, and more throughout the year.

Seasonal Titan Reforged Realms Launched in China

We've also launched Seasonal Titan Reforged Realms in Classic WoW for players in China. Why? Not only are the audiences between modern and Classic World of Warcraft unique, but so are the players in China. We made those realms for them based on how they play.

This is not all we have cooking up. We can say with confidence all Classic players across the globe have a lot to look forward to. We'll save that for later.

Our Commitment to You

What is the State of Azeroth? It's alive in all its forms and we plan to keep it that way with your help and guidance as we listen to your feedback and act on it. We'll soon be launching surveys within the game to get your thoughts and feedback. We are committed to listening to you and aim to keep proving our dedication to this ideal. We want to continue providing you with the space, place, and tools to play the way you want to play and live how you want to live in Azeroth. That's our Northstar.

We want our humble universe to be go to when you have free time, when you need to recharge alongside your friends and family after a long day, or when you need an escape. Let off steam by conquering a boss, roleplaying, now decorating, transmogging, PvPing, exploring, and more. A fantasy home in every sense. Where strangers become friends and friends become neighbors.

Find Your People

We have a plan for those of you looking to find your people. Those players who enjoy WoW the same way you do. We're calling it the WoW Ambassador Program. It's all about the community helping the community. It's less about us and more about you. It's a bit of an experiment to help connect you with players and communities that are filled with others who play how you play-or how you want to play. These Ambassadors are helpful friends within our own WoW community.

New Charity Pet Pack for Habitat for Humanity

As you know, community is our mainstay and in the era of Housing, we wanted to do what we can to support those who need more than pixels when it comes to having a place to live. This year we're excited to be partnering with Habitat for Humanity with a charity pet pack that we hope, with your support, will help provide safety and shelter to families in need of an affordable home. Habitat for Humanity has helped more than sixty-five million people globally.

This charity pet pack includes the adorable Roofus who will be available in both modern World of Warcraft and Classic WoW. Roofus loves to build-something you'll see in action if he's left idle for too long. Those of you who play modern WoW will also get a dog house, a bowl, and a bed.

We're incredibly excited to be supporting Habitat for Humanity this year and will have more information to share about how you can bring Roofus home soon.

A Thank You!

As always, you are our heroes, our heartbeat, and our gratitude is everlasting.

Thank you for your continued passion, for the time you've put into this world, and for your boundless creativity. It has been amazing seeing so many jump into Housing over the last couple of months. On behalf of everyone who had any part in bringing Housing to life, we are in awe of what you've already created. We knew you'd make incredible homes, but the community response has blown away our expectations. There is no World of Warcraft without you the community.

We are honored to be a part of this world and humbled to be the caretakers of something that has remained so special and important to so many people for so long.

The Current and Future World of Warcraft

We want to share a bit of what we're up to for World of Warcraft in terms of the right now, present content, the fast-approaching launch of Midnight, and a small peek at some of the bigger things we have planned for 2026. We aren't able to get into all the details just yet as many of these plans involve story spoilers and we want to hold on to some surprises to share later. There's still a lot to look forward to for all residents of Azeroth in the year ahead.

It's Nearly Midnight

We're almost a month away from Midnight launch and the development team is hard at work fixing bugs, refining features, and getting the expansion ready for players to dive into in March. Between now and the launch of the expansion, there's still plenty to see and do in WoW today.

The Midnight Pre-Expansion Update

Twilight Ascension Pre-Expansion Event

The Twilight Ascension pre-expansion event is live now and runs through to the launch of Midnight on March 2. This is where the stakes start to crystallize and the threat we face begins to take shape. It's also where the Void makes itself felt in Azeroth. This is a repeatable event in which players join Umbric and Grand Magister Rommath to keep the Twilight's Blade cult at bay.

Players take up World Quests and defeat rare enemies to disrupt the rituals of the Twilight's Blade cult as well as earn event currency to use to purchase limited-time rewards such as armor sets, pets, a mount, and more. Players will also be able to collect new Housing decor to help furnish their home in Azeroth. Learn more about the event in our previously published article.

Demon Hunter Devourer Specialization and Void Elf Demon Hunters

Also in the pre-expansion content update, players can take up a new Void-themed ranged Devourer specialization. Void Elf Demon Hunters can be unlocked after a short questline. Learn more in our previously published article.

Systems Updates

Some of the baseline system improvements and updates have also gone live including an updated transmog system that includes situational outfit swapping, an improved user interface (UI), and slot-based transmog so that you don't have to re-transmog every time you get an upgrade.

Training Grounds

For players new to PvP, you can learn the ropes in the training grounds against smarter game-controlled opponents in the Arathi Basin, Silvershard Mines, and Battle for Gilneas battlegrounds.

Winds of Mysterious Fortune

A limited-time event, reputation gains and experience gains are boosted for players below level 80, it's a great way to get caught up to speed before the Midnight release whether you're leveling an alternate character to join the fray or fast-tracking some reputation-based Housing decor items that you've been aiming to add to your collection. Learn more in our article.

Dark Portal Housing Decor Item

For a limited time, we're granting a Dark Portal Housing decor item for all players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time who log in between now and Midnight expansion launch.

Make Your Stand During the Welcome Back Weekend

From January 29 through February 1, we're giving all players with inactive World of Warcraft® accounts full access to return to the game and all your characters without a subscription. Explore the World of Warcraft base game up to level 80 including all level-up content, the pre-launch events, the recent system updates in the pre-expansion content update, the completely overhauled returning player experience, and more than twenty years of Azeroth's world and story.

We're excited for the Midnight expansion and we want to make it easy for you to check it all out for yourself. Learn more about the Welcome Back Weekend in our news article.

Midnight Expansion

• Increased Level Cap: The level cap in Midnight is increasing to level 90, and players will level through four new and reimagined zones full of new questing content of both campaign chapters as well as local stories with additional chapters waiting for you at maximum level.
• Eight New Dungeons: The expansion also introduces eight new dungeons, eleven new Delves and a new Delve companion, Valeera Sanguinar.
• Prey System: The new Prey System adds a new layer of depth and challenge to your gameplay.
• Slayers Rise PvP: A new PvP feature is arriving in Midnight with the Epic Battleground, Slayer's Rise, which also exists as an outdoor world space for those who want to take part in world PvP in War Mode.
• Arcantina: Spend time in the Arcantina, a mystical tavern where you can rub elbows with some big names in WoW lore, learn more about them, and complete quests on their behalf.

A couple of weeks after the launch of the expansion, Midnight Season One begins, pulling the story forward through a host of new content.

• The Voidspire Raid: This six-boss raid is the beginning of the capstone for the story we're telling at the start of Midnight.
• The Dreamrift Raid: A smaller one boss raid encounter.
• Four New World Bosses
• Updated Mythic+ Dungeon Pool: Four dungeons will be new Midnight dungeons and four will be four updated legacy dungeons.
• New Delves Season
• New PvP Season

Shortly after the start of Season One, we'll introduce a third raid zone with two bosses in The March on Quel'Danas. This new raid will cap off the initial chapter of the Midnight story, bringing us closer to what will come next.

The addition of Story Mode to World of Warcraft has made it so that any player can experience these moments for themselves. We want to continue to lean in, giving you ways to experience the story of Azeroth no matter how you choose to play. Whether you want to jump in and tackle raids, take on Delves, or just hang out in the Arcantina and chat. Our goal is to give you lots to do and plenty of options to select from.

We can't wait to see how you choose to adventure across the unfolding story of Midnight.

Housing Updates

We have been overwhelmed by your creativity and ingenuity during Housing Early Access, along with your feedback. We want you to help us build this feature together. We want to hear more of what you're interested in, more of what's working, and what's not working. Your feedback is directly informing the decisions we make. You've already seen some of the quality-of-life improvements go live over the last couple of months, but we're keeping a close eye on Housing to continually improve the feature from every angle. Whether we're talking about economy adjustments, UI updates, or all new functionalities.

We want to keep finding opportunities to support the creative expression that you invent, such as making it easier to float your house as an example. We already have a couple of things in mind. We've heard from many in the community that your cozy creation doesn't feel complete without the ability for some of your companion pets to wander around your home. We want to offer this ability to do this along with showcasing more of your cosmetic collections in general such as being able to hitch a couple of your favorite mounts up in your yard outdoors. We're working on delivering this as well.

We've also seen and heard that as you're expressing your boundless creativity, you want to be able to move creations in their entirety-such as a grand piano made of various decor items-to a new spot in your home without having to deconstruct it. We want to make it so that you can select multiple pieces and move them all together along with the ability to copy and paste.

As you're browsing other players Housing designs, we've heard that you would like a way to copy and import their looks as a starting point for your own creations, or maybe you have created something you would like to share with others. To that end, we're working on import and export codes for easy sharing and exchanging your house designs.

We're also continuing to increase indoor and outdoor decor budgets as we learn more about technical limits of the system along with simply wanting to make sure we're providing opportunities for progression as you level up your house.

This is only some of what we're working on with an eye on some bigger things for Housing as well. We're paying attention to how Endeavors are working, how they enliven Neighborhoods, and how players interact with them, so that we can continue to support the things you want to see from the feature.

This is just the ground floor for Housing in World of Warcraft. This is the foundation of a feature that we want to be a reflection of your life and times in Azeroth and we're serious about expanding it and improving it alongside you, the player, in the years to come.

Thank you for your passion and feedback so far. Keep telling us what you want from Housing and we will keep listening and keep it coming.

Beyond Midnight

We have a few things to share with you beyond the launch of Midnight beginning with a few specific plans and then getting a bit vaguer as we move into the later part of the year.

12.0.5

Shortly after the launch of Midnight, patch 12.0.5 will arrive on the Public Test Realm (PTR). This update finds us in the aftermath of the Season One raids.

Void Assaults

The threat of Xal'atath has yet to be resolved, so we're going to see Void Assaults begin to appear across the outdoor world. These will bring us new enemies to fight, new reasons to rally to defend Azeroth, and new rewards along the way.

Prop Hunt

On the lighter side, we'll be adding a prop hunt-inspired event as a small diversion from the battle between the Light and the Void. In this event, you're going to queue up to join a team of five to face off against another small team of five in a location such as Silvermoon City. One team will use illusion to disguise themselves as innocuous props to hide within the environment. The other team will try to seek them out. You might not defeat the Void and save Azeroth by taking part in this event, but it's a great way to find a bit of fun in the face of the ever present and growing threat the Void presents.

12.0.7

Our next small update brings a further escalation of Void Assaults and introduces a one boss raid with Sporefall. We're excited to move away from the idea that raids need to be massive twice a year updates. We want to lean more into the flexibility of matching the content we offer to the ongoing narrative and find opportunities to tell stories of different shapes and sizes.

12.1

This brings us to our first major Midnight content update. It will arrive with a new zone with maximum level content, new raid, and a new season with an updated Mythic+ dungeon Pool, new PvP and Delves rewards, and continued refinements you'd expect from a major content update in World of Warcraft.

The update will also bring with it an overhaul of the Friends system, making it easier to keep up with friends you have and make new friends along the way.

12.1.5

We're introducing a new content type. To support the passionate community around Delves, we want to add more flexibility and experimentation. For those who love Delve gameplay but want something more than the bite sized experiences that are currently offered, we're adding a new feature that we're currently calling Labyrinths.

These are inspired by mega-dungeons. They are large sprawling experiences you can tackle all at once or a bit at a time depending on your own schedule. They will have a different form and reward structure than are currently available in Delves but retain the core elements of exploring and besting foes alongside your Delve companion.

In 12.1.5, we're also planning another small one boss raid encounter. Unlike the raid in 12. 0.7, which is more of a standalone experience, this raid will be a continuation of the narrative in Midnight. It will serve as a bridge and set the stage for the next major update the following year.

Later in the year, we'll also have a new stand-alone event from the same wizards who brought you game modes like Plunderstorm or Remix. We'll share more about this mode later and it will exist alongside the core World of Warcraft game.

This is all accompanied by the steady flow of content that the community is used to seeing such as holiday updates, events like Turbulent Timeways, and much more.

Looking Forward

There's much more to come in Midnight and World of Warcraft as a whole and we can't wait for you to see it. BlizzCon is arriving in just under eight months and it's going to be one for the ages. We hope to see you there so that we can show you more about what we're thinking for the next twenty years of everything Warcraft. You won't want to miss it.

Thank you for joining us and thank you for being a part of the journey with us. We know the Void and Xal'atath are dark threats, the stakes are high and the tone of Midnight can be dire. But we also never want to forget that Azeroth is, for all of us, home. It's a place of light, community, family, and friends. This is a world that can warm the heart of even the Prince of Darkness.

Adventure is calling you home. We'll see you at BlizzCon 2026 and, of course, in Azeroth.