World of Warcraft patch 7.3.5 goes live tomorrow in North America, patch notes out now

Blizzard has (finally) announced that World of Warcraft patch 7.3.5 will be rolled out tomorrow—January 16—in North America, and January 17 in Europe. Expected to be the final patch for the Legion expansion, 7.3.5 will add a number of new features to the game detailed in the full patch notes, which were also released today.   

Patch highlights include: 

  • A Scaling World - Every zone in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, Northrend, Pandaria, and Draenor now use the level scaling system introduced in Legion. This new scaling system greatly increases the amount of options you have when deciding where to quest and when to move on to the next zone. All corresponding dungeons and the rewards therein now scale as well.
  • Ulduar Timewalking - A long-forgotten evil has awakened once more. Travel back in time with 10-30 other adventurers to cleanse Ulduar of Yogg-Saron’s evil influence. While you journey through this memorable Wrath of the Lich King raid, your character will be scaled to player level 80.
  • Silithus: The Wound - Players who have completed Antorus, The Burning Throne will be summoned to your capital cities, from which you’ll travel to Silithus to investigate the strange events surrounding the impact of Sargeras’ blade. Look for this new questline upon logging in.
  • New Battleground: Seething Shore - The Alliance and the Horde fight over a precious new resource, Azerite, in this new 10v10 battleground. Seething Shore is a king of the hill battleground where the first faction to collect ten pieces of Azerite from randomly spawned nodes, wins. The Seething Shore will become available as the story in Silithus unfolds.  

The update also adds a new token that transforms into a random Legion legendary item for your class specialization, available from Arcanomancer Vridiel for 1000 Waking Essences, while Waking Essences earned through activities will be awarded at six times the previous rate. There are also changes to resurrection mechanics in Mythic Keystone dungeons and the Selfie camera, and various tweaks and adjustment s to achievements, classes, dungeons, items, and toys. Blizzard is also encouraging players to make use of its Authenticator and/or Blizzard SMS Protect by offering four extra backpack slots to everyone who does.

Our resident WoW-meister Steven put together some thoughts about what we can look forward to from World of Warcraft this year beyond this update, including "massive" changes to PvP and the Battle for Azeroth expansion announced last year at BlizzCon. Dive in here.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.