The next World of Warcraft expansion may have leaked ahead of its official announcement later this month.
While Blizzard has said it’s planning to reveal the next World of Warcraft expansion during an online event on April 19, Wowhead reports the cat may already be out of the bag.
Following an update to the World of Warcraft website, its public source code reveals strings for the Dragonflight Base, Heroic and Epic Expansion pre-purchases.
It also points to a new, albeit currently inaccessible URL, dragonflight.blizzard.com.
Wowhead previously datamined several items which appeared as if they could be rewards tied to the new expansion, including a green or emerald dragon mount.
World of Warcraft has received a new expansion roughly every two years since its 2004 launch. It last got one in November 2020 in the form of Shadowlands.
Blizzard has traditionally delivered a series of product updates at BlizzCon each November, but the fan convention has been cancelled for the past two years due to disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
It was scheduled to hold a hybrid event mixing the formula of February 2021’s BlizzConline “with smaller in-person gatherings” in early 2022, but those plans were also cancelled following sexual discrimination and harassment revelations which have tarnished the reputation of the studio and its parent company.
Xbox owner Microsoft announced in January that it intends to purchase Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal, which would be the game industry’s biggest ever by some distance, should it gain regulatory approval.
The following week, Blizzard confirmed it was staffing up for work on “a new AAA survival game” for PC and console.
In May, Blizzard will offer a preview of Warcraft’s first game
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