Blizzard is bringing back WOTLK Classic Gold's incredibly popular Wrath on the Lich King expansion, however, when it arrives, it can be even more old-school than some players remember.

Wrath on the Lich King was obviously a revolutionary expansion in lots of ways. It was in the expansion that Blizzard's MMORPG peaked with regard to subscription numbers, and also the expansion introduced the action's first new class within the Death Knight, added achievements, and featured a fan-favorite villain that served as the perfect base to make an entire expansion around. While many players, and Blizzard itself, maybe was clueless that it at that time, Wrath on the Lich King also did start to lay the cornerstone for what would end up being the modern-day version of the game, with convenience features like automated dungeon matchmaking and markers in the spotlight telling players wherever to go to complete their quests.

Those two features specifically will never be present in Wrath on the Lich King Classic. That was obviously a conscious decision on Blizzard's part as a way to preserve what Blizzard describes as Classic's "core values." While many players look at the game's 2010 Cataclysm expansion because of the major turning point in history in the game, when many in the game's classes and systems were updated to become more a lot like how they have become, those seeds were actually planted while using final Wrath with the Lich King patch. Wrath from the Lich King Classic will still are powered by the expansion's last patch, only without the presence of features that, inside the WoW Classic team's mind, begun to erode the social-focused experience with the MMORPG.

"We don't make these types of changes lightly," Wrath with the Lich King Classic principal system designer Kris Zierhut said in a very recent group interview that GameSpot took part in. "They originate from really core values to what Classic is approximate. We think Classic is around being social, acquiring buddies, and meeting new people. In order to create that happen, you must run into those individuals on multiple occasions, you need to have an opportunity to play with them, and then use them a second time and say 'Oh yeah, I remember that guy, he was cool last time, maybe I should add him to my friend's list. Maybe I should put him in this little list of people I try for making dungeon groups with,' once you have had a successful dungeon run. We desire to emphasize social and now we also desire to emphasize the earth and immersion inside the world."

The changes being released in the wotlk classic gold store make the perfect indication of how much Blizzard's mindset has evolved since it first released WoW Classic in 2019. Back then, Blizzard sought to recreate "vanilla" WoW mainly because it was back in 2006 as closely as you can, with as few changes as you can. But as time passes, specifically at the end of WoW Classic's content release cycle so when part of Blizzard's re-release from the game's first expansion, The Burning Crusade, that philosophy did start to change.

"As for which happens after Wrath on the Lich King, we want to hear from the neighborhood," Zierhut said. "This whole project is community driven, this complete project came to get because the neighborhood demanded it. So we need to hear what the neighborhood wants to see next…We have our personal opinions, though the opinions of the community will help us make better decisions."

Wrath with the Lich King Classic is slated to come sometime in 2022. Blizzard recently announced a brand new expansion for that modern version of the game, Dragonflight. The game's ninth expansion, it'll add the brand new ranged Evoker class (because it's a new dragon race), the revolutionary Dragon Isles continent, and revamp many "evergreen" systems like professions and talents. Dragonflight is going to be released "when it's ready."