WoW: The War Within launch roadmap confirms Season 1 and raid release date

James Lynch
Alleria Windrunner in World of Warcraft: The War Within

World of Warcraft: The War Within is finally arriving in August and its staggered launch is a little different this time around. As such, Blizzard released a roadmap confirming exactly when players can get their hands on all its features.

As the first part in a three-expansion saga, The War Within is set to lay the foundation for the game for years to come. As a full release, it’s epic in scope, with a new Allied Race, eight new dungeons, and a huge raid for people to conquer in its earliest throes.

The full release is set for August 26 (or August 22 in early access), but there are several other dates that players should be aware of. To accommodate that, the developer’s full roadmap confirms all the important information up to the release of Season 1.

Here’s everything you need to know about the release of The War Within.

Xal'atath in The War Within

WoW: The War Within full roadmap and release details

As illustrated in the post below, the full schedule and the content cadence is as follows:

  • Pre-Expansion Update – July 23
    • Dynamic flight for hundreds of existing mounts
    • Warbands
    • The Radiant Echoes event, running until August 26
    • Cross-realm guilds
    • Talent Tree updates
    • UI updates and improvements
  • Early Access – August 22
    • Access the full storyline and max-level campaign
    • Level to new cap of 80
    • 8 new dungeons
    • New PvP Battleground
    • Hero Talent trees release
    • Four new zones to explore – Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azj-Kahet.
    • New allied race – The Earthen
  • Full release August 26
  • Season One – September 10
    • Mythic Dungeons (4 new and 4 returning)
    • Seasonal Delves (new activity)
    • Class Tier Sets
    • PvP Season and RBG Solo Queue
    • Nerubar Palace Raid (Mythic version releases September 17)

This fresh-looking release schedule is designed to ensure that players with Early Access won’t have too much of a power advantage. This is done by requiring everyone to wait until the launch of Season One for Mythic Dungeons and the raid.

Expect the Race to World First to kick off immediately following the launch of Mythic Nerubar Palace on September 17.

If you’re looking to get early access or jump into the beta, you’ll need to purchase the Epic Edition of the expansion from the Blizzard store.