Today marks the release of World of Warcraft patch 10.2.6 and Blizzard's new battle royale PvP experiment, Plunderstorm, and based on interviews with Blizzard representatives and WoW's previous update cycles, we have been able to determine when the MMO's next We determined when the expansion would likely be released.

More precisely, the launch of "The War Within" expansion will be sometime in August, probably around August 20.

I have a reasonable track record in predicting patch and expansion launch dates, as I have been covering this game for over 20 years, have hit the mark several times in the past, and broke the first release date for WoW as part of an interview with Vivendi's then VP.

But don't take my word for it. Here we delve deeper into why the August 20 launch date may be true.

In my interview with Blizzard representatives for this patch, we discussed the scheduling element. The new patch will last six weeks, season 4 will be available in the public test realm this weekend, and then the next season will begin "in a few weeks."

"The first half will see the Plunderstorm event, and the second half will see Season 4," a Blizzard representative said of 10.2.6, assuming Blizzard's standard definition of "a few" means three, and that "half" is being used indicates that Season 4 will begin on April 9.

The new season will essentially be a victory lap of Dragonflight dungeons and raids: all eight of the original Dragonflight dungeons will return on Mythic Plus difficulty, three raids in the expansion (Vault of the Incarnates, Aberrus, and Amirdrassil) will all return in rotation in a system very similar to Shadowlands' Fated raid system.

Blizzard has yet to comment on its details, but game director Ion Hazzikostas said in an interview at BlizzCon last fall that it is very similar to Shadowlands' Fated system, with punitive affixes (a new mechanic that players have to re-progress), and that it would be less fun for players; Blizzard has learned from that experience, he said at the time.

The new "Fated" (to be the new name) raid rotation overlaps 10.2.6 and 10.2.7, the representative said. Patch 10.2.7 is the epilogue to the Dragonflight storyline and the beginning of The War Within storyline.

In Shadowlands, the Fated raids ran for a total of 12 weeks, one week each of three raids, in four rotations, before Dragonflight's massive pre-patch began; once Dragonflight's pre-patch began, all raids were available at all times. So if something similar were to happen here, it would look something like this:

This schedule would be repeated until The War Within's 11.0 pre-patch start event. Assuming the same schedule as for Dragonflight, the 11.0 patch would be July 2. This is because it will include all of the new systems, new abilities, and new balance that will be part of the core game in The War Within. It also has new stories and events that are frequently new in themselves. It is essentially the launch of a new expansion and will not include new zones or storylines.

Traditionally, Blizzard has been very reluctant to release patches of that sort during vacation weeks, and the July 4th holiday in the US is a popular vacation week. If I were a betting woman, I would say that Blizzard would take steps to avoid that week as a pre-patch release date.

If that were the case, they would release Season 4 a week later, not complete one of the rotations altogether (unlikely), remove one of the rotations altogether or add one, or decouple the "all raids are Fated" week from the pre-patch launch date. There will be options.

Based on past experience, I would most likely take the first or last option, starting Season 4 on April 16 or starting "All Raids are Fated" on July 2 and 11. 0 The same result will be achieved a week later, on July 9.

I think there are several reasons: one, such a choice would require the least amount of in-house coordination; two, the representative said in an interview that this "doomed" rotation would be "the raid rotation that people are used to" -- which, of course might just mean a 1-2-3 week rotation, but it could also mean an overall number of rotations.

And finally, according to past interviews and conversations, the company prefers to keep the pre-expansion patches as long as possible - 6 weeks. In other words, either of these options would result in an August 20 launch date for The War Within; August 15 has been a common internal date for Warcraft expansion patch launches in the past, but Blizzard often misses such internal deadlines by a long passed them. [Lately, however, Blizzard has been keeping to schedule in surprising ways. And last fall, when I pointed out that I had predicted that "The War Within" would be released in the "fall" and that fall would begin on September 22 of this year, a Blizzard executive corrected me. I was told it would not be that late.

Given that there is a pre-sale version of "The War Within" that gives players three days of early access, players will play the new expansion on Saturday, August 17, which is much closer to the customary target of August 15.

Is the August 20 prediction correct? After all, launching a new season like Season 4 three weeks after the patch launch date, or accompanying a typical small .6 patch, is a somewhat unusual move and caused me to have to modify much of my normal internal schedule. But if not that Tuesday, it will likely be closer to that Tuesday, unless Blizzard takes steps to change the game again.