The first alpha build for World of Warcraft: The War Within has made the rounds on Blizzard’s internal servers, as testing for the upcoming expansion pack is about to begin soon. While Dragonflight has undoubtedly been a major success for World of Warcraft, many players remarked that its narrative felt more like a side adventure than a proper story. Given the convoluted plot of Shadowlands, perhaps that’s precisely what the game needed before it was ready to tackle the looming legacy of Legion‘s ending.
While the overarching story will span across three expansions, features coming in The War Within are designed to be evergreen from the start. Gone is the era of borrowed power that came to define Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, as the upcoming expansion will bring Dynamic Flight, Warbands, Delves, and Hero Talents to World of Warcraft as permanent fixtures. The features were briefly teased during the World of Warcraft panel at BlizzCon 2023, but players will be able to experience them in detail once alpha testing begins on The War Within.
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World of Warcraft: The War Within Starts Internal Testing
As reported by Wowhead, it appears that The War Within has launched its first version (Build 52528) on Blizzard’s internal servers, albeit under encryption. This means that data-miners can’t quite access the files just yet, but it should give the World of Warcraft community a good estimate on The War Within‘s release window based on the testing cycle of past expansions.
The timeline for Shadowlands and Dragonflight, from their first encrypted build to release:
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
- Encrypted Shadowlands Build: February 19, 2020
- Alpha: April 9, 2020
- Release Date: November 23, 2020
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
- Encrypted Dragonflight Build: April 22, 2022
- Alpha: July 14, 2022
- Release Date: November 28, 2022
Dragonflight was released 220 days after its first encrypted build was uploaded to Blizzard’s servers, while Shadowlands experienced a four-week delay. Assuming no delays happen for The War Within, and in a best case scenario, fans could be expecting the next World of Warcraft expansion to launch sometime between July 19, 2024, and August 18, 2024. Given that alpha testing was previously mentioned to start during Spring 2024, the release date could be moved into early Fall 2024 – which would line up with the release window teased by Blizzard at BlizzCon 2023.
While Dragonflight still has another Mythic Season to go through, many players would agree that Fated Raids are a poor substitute for entirely new content. If the timeline for The War Within lines up with the previous expansion packs, and if its testing cycle goes smoothly, World of Warcraft fans should more realistically expect a late September release rather than a late November one. Given that World of Warcraft is working on two expansions at once, the wait between The War Within and Midnight should be far shorter by comparison.
