A YouTuber has broken into World of Warcraft: Classic's world a week early

The demo for World of Warcraft: Classic is due to launch next week—but one YouTuber has managed to sneak into its version of Azeroth early by using an emulator.

The YouTuber, called Dodgy Kebaab, told Eurogamer that the demo client for the game had leaked on various Discord channels. Normally, it wouldn't be usable, but he was able to get into the game using a sandbox emulator, which stops it connecting to Blizzard's servers, instead connecting it to a program running on a PC.

Using this method doesn't create a perfect copy of what the demo will be: there are no NPCs or quests, for example. But Dodgy Kebaab was able to run around the game world and make the video above comparing its visuals to those of vanilla World of Warcraft in 2005.

You can see the changes in textures and lighting between the two versions, as well as a difference in the menus. You'll also be able to hit a 'Classic' button to revert World of Warcraft back to what it looked like 13 years ago, if you prefer.

The demo is now available for pre-load, and the only way to get access is to buy a virtual ticket for BlizzCon, which starts on November 2.

For more on World of Warcraft: Classic, read Luke's piece on why it was deceptively hard to make.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.