With WoW Classic Anniversary Phases releasing quicker, it can be hard to know when content is due to drop. You might be wondering when Phase 5 and 6, or when Classic Anniversary TBC Releases? Thankfully, with 4 Phases now live, we have a solid idea of when Phase 5, 6, and TBC will arrive.
Including the TBC pre-patch, WoW Classic Anniversary is set to have 7 phases. The Phase structure will follow the same format as previous Classic releases. However, the Anniversary release is coming a lot faster.
In the guide below, we've looked at some numbers, online posts, and some Reddit sleuthing to come up with some predicted dates for Phase 5, Phase 6, and when we think TBC Classic will drop.
WoW Classic Phase Release Schedule
Below, we'll take a look at when each Phase was released in the Classic Era (back in 2019/2020) and how we think it will compare to Anniversary.
Phase 1
Classic Era: August 26th, 2019
Classic Anniversary: November 21st, 2024
Classic Anniversary was dropped fairly out of the blue, and some found it to be surprisingly lacking in changes. Many expected something more than Season of Mastery, but not as much as Season of Discovery. That said, people clearly wanted Classic again, and this time it had reduced Phase durations.
Phase 2
Classic Era: November 12th, 2019 (Dire Maul came out on October 15th)
Classic Anniversary: January 9th, 2025
Gap difference between Era timeline: 29 days, around 37%
The first chance we got to see a gap, and 37% really set the tone for Anniversary straight away.
Phase 3
Classic Era: February 12th, 2020
Classic Anniversary: March 20th, 2025
Gap difference between Era: 21 days, around 23%
The release of BWL really felt like the first "oh, wow" moment for Anniversary, and that Blizzard were not messing around.
Phase 4
Classic Era: March 15th, 2020
Classic Anniversary: April 3rd, 2025
Gap difference between Era: 21 days, 33%
Note: In Classic Era, Arathi Basin came out before Phase 4 in Era, but in Anniversary it came out after.
Phase 4 also came fairly fast, though given the patch is considered a catch-up patch for many, it wasn't too surprising.
Phase 5
Classic Era: July 28th, 2020
Classic Anniversary Prediction: July 12th, 2025
Gap difference between Era: 39 days, 44%
If the prediction is correct, it would keep the trend of the later phases lasting increasingly longer. Phase 5 will continue this trend as Blizzard appears to be looking to drop TBC in early 2026.
Phase 6
Classic Era: December 1st, 2020
Classic Anniversary Prediction: October 7th, 2025
Gap difference between Era: 56 days, 31%
While we are back down to 31% here, it's worth noting that Era AQ was a long patch, and will be again in Anniversary, lasting around 126 days.
WoW Classic TBC Release
Classic Era: June 2nd 2021
Classic Anniversary Prediction: February 10th, 2026
The TBC gap in Classic Era was very long, with Blizzard sitting on the final patch for 6 months. This was mostly due to them not knowing if TBC was even going to happen, and not having a plan for what they did with those wanting to stay. For Anniversary, it feels like Blizzard won't look to stick around, and will instead move players onto TBC fairly quickly.
They may, however, offer Anniversary Classic players a home for their 60 chars; we suspect it might be on the old Era realms.
WoW Anniversary Release Phase Predictions
To summarise what we think:
- Phase 5 - July 12th 2025
- Phase 6 - October 7th 2025
- TBC - February 10th 2026
Given WoW Midnight, the expansion to War Within is due to drop in "early 2026" the TBC date for Anniversary might be impacted, or even come out sooner. That said, Blizzard has continued to treat each of the three active WoW releases as separate, and don't seem to care about them overlapping.
