Wrath of the Lich King Classic Possibly Already In Development

• Author: Pride
• Date: February 22, 2022
• Updated: February 22, 2022
• Expansion: WotLK Classic

Last week, people scraping Blizzard’s public API discovered a new end-point curiously named “wowdev3”, with a long name of “Development 3”. “wowdev3” went on to get added to the Battle.net client, which meant that it is a genuine development environment that Blizzard is using, and not just a test environment.

For reference, retail World of Warcraft builds get pushed on the “wowdev” environment while TBC Classic builds get pushed on the “wowdev2” environment, so this “wowdev3” environment would be something completely new. Predictably, all sorts of wild speculation ensued, with guesses as to the true nature of “wowdev3” ranging from a possible 10.0 version of the game (the next retail expansion) to more crazy guesses, such as a long-rumoured “World of Warcraft 2” successor to retail WoW.

A lot of people pointed out that the most likely candidate for “wowdev3” is Wrath of the Lich King Classic, as “wowdev2” only came around when TBC Classic’s development begun. Still, with a lack of proof either way, this guess was not particularly more convincing than the others — until players discovered possible proof!

Keen-eyed players discovered that on TBC Classic, at the edge of the canals between the Park and Cathedral districts, a bunch of construction workers appear to be working on something — which players of course know to be the Stormwind Harbour, the access point to Nortrend and Wrath of the Lich King content.

It is currently unclear whether it’s been like that since the very beginning of TBC Classic or if it was something that was cheekily added recently by Blizzard, with players claiming both of those things are the case. It is very possible that it has indeed been the case since the start, as we are were launched on the 2.4.3 patch to begin with, which historically was the last patch before the Wrath of the Lich King “pre-patch”, patch 3.0.2.

The nature of “wowdev3” will likely remain a mystery for a good bit longer, as it is unlikely that Blizzard announces the next Classic expansion before players have access to the last content tier of The Burning Crusade, the Sunwell Plateau. But players who are eagerly awaiting Wrath of the Lich King — a widely-beloved expansion that managed to net Blizzard roughly 13 million concurrent subscribers — certainly have more reasons to be hyped right now!

What are your thoughts on this topic? Are you hyped for “wowdev3” potentially being Wrath of the Lich King already in development, or are you going to wait until some more concrete proof is discovered? Are you part of the “Wrath of the Lich King Waiting Room”, or are you more excited about TBC content? Let us know in the comments below!