It will not be long before the World of Warcraft: The War Within Release date for Early Access is here. Tomorrow, the 20-year-old MMO will receive its latest expansion, introducing a new playable race and, for the first time in its history, a new account-wide progression system. The War Within is also the first in a trilogy of expansions that will supposedly finally conclude story threads that began when WoW was still a baby MMO.
Some of the expansion’s features are already available via a pre-release update, namely Warbands, WoW’s long-awaited answer for people with a bunch of characters they like to play. Warbands is the result of squeezing all of your characters into a “Get Along” t-shirt and having them share game progress. Reputations, transmog cosmetics, and gear are all included. Our own Fraser Brown is a huge fan, calling it “a tantalizing teaser for WoW’s new direction.”
It’s been years since I played WoW seriously, but it sounds like it’s a good time to get back on the glitter horse and give it another go. Here’s when The War Within is coming out for people who pre-ordered the Epic Edition.
When is the Early Access release date for World of Warcraft: The War Within?
The three-day Early Access period for The War Within begins on 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, August 22and then it will go live for everyone on August 26th. Blizzard is based in California, so they usually launch things in their own time zone, which is why countries like Germany and Australia technically have to wait until Friday. You can check when it opens in your local time, or check out the worldwide launch times below:
- 3:00 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles)
- 6:00 p.m. EDT (New York)
- 19:00 BRT (Sao Paulo)
- 23:00 BST (London)
- 23 August, 12:00 CEST (Berlin)
- 23 August, 8:00am AEST (Sydney)
- 10am, 23 August NZST (Auckland)
If you haven’t touched the game in a while, you can download it through Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher. Once you’ve updated to the latest patch, you won’t need anything else before you can jump in tomorrow. However, you might want to watch a story summary video to understand what’s been happening in Azeroth over the past few years and what the gothic elf on the cover is up to.