World of Warcraft Classic will be released on August 27

Blizzard will release World of Warcraft Classic on August 27. The classic version of the game that celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year will then be available to all paying World of Warcraft players. A closed beta begins on Wednesday.

Players who already have a WoW subscription can sign up for the closed beta test. Blizzard makes a selection of participants and says that it will first be a small-scale test. Later, the developer will invite more players for stress tests. That take place between May and July.

World of Warcraft Classic will be available on August 27, but not all content will be released at once. In March, Blizzard already announced a release schedule indicating that there are six different phases. The first phase will therefore start on August 27, a timetable for the five phases after that has not yet been released.

According to Blizzard, WoW Classic offers the game’s authentic gameplay as it was in 2006, combined with modern server infrastructure, social features and support for new hardware. WoW Classic is based on version 1.12 of the game.