World of Warcraft has been around for a long, long time now and, as a result, its players are likely to have different opinions on their favorite eras of the game, that timeline punctuated by the launch of expansions ranging from The Burning Crusade through to The War Within. Most agree, though, that 2012’s Mists of Pandaria marks a high point for the long-running MMO, which has made its addition to WoW Classic eagerly anticipated. Today, Blizzard has announced that it won’t be much longer before the expansion is ready to play in something close to its original form once again.
The revamped, throwback version of World of Warcraft has steadily added in each expansion present in the original MMORPG since its 2019 launch. Now, Mists of Pandaria Classic is nearly here, providing a solid opportunity to return to the expansion or play it for the first time.
As before, the expansion brings players to the previously isolated lands of Pandaria, with the new characters and plotlines the setting contains. In the lead up to its full launch, a pre-expansion patch is set to arrive, bringing with it the ability to create a Pandaren character, use the Monk hero class, and earn the Shaohao’s Sage Serpent Skyriding mount to bring into regular WoW. Players can use the Joyous Journeys experience buff until this pre-patch launches if they’re in a hurry to reach level 85 in time for Mists of Pandaria. There’s also a pet battling minigame, reworked classes and loot gathering, as well as the Theramore’s Fall world event designed to serve as a prologue for the full expansion’s storyline.
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic launches on Monday July 21, 2025. The pre-patch arrives the week of Tuesday July 1, 2025.
In the meantime, you can get more out of your time preparing for Mists of Pandaria through our guide to the best WoW addons, or find something else entirely to check out in our picks for the best free MMOs on PC.
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