After a year and a half of updates, WoW Classic's Season of Discovery is finally winding down in favor of something new: 'We need to get in the proverbial kitchen and cook'

World of Warcraft Paladin character — (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Season of Discovery is an odd one. It's an offshoot of WoW Classic—a recreation of World of Warcraft circa 2006—which soups it up with all sorts of new build options, raids, legendary weapons, and wild PvP events. For fans, it's been like peering into an alternate reality where WoW stuck to its guns and never reinvented itself with the times.

Well, show's over, buddy: Blizzard announced this week in a blog post that there's no more big seasonal updates on the way. While the SoD servers aren't closing down for the time being, there's a more substantial project in the works that needs the team's attention. The blog post from Aggrend reads: "We need to make sure we’re spending our time where it will make the most impact on the long-term future of WoW Classic … we hope to see the game mode continue to operate similar to WoW Classic Era for many months (if not years) to come."

I always wondered if Season of Discovery would actually end. Back when it was barely a twinkle in anyone's eye, it had people clamoring for a full-on Classic Plus: an OSRS-style alternate game version which would receive updates parallel with modern World of Warcraft indefinitely. It's hard to say if that's exactly what Blizzard's cooking right now, but Aggrend's post seems to imply it's working on something a little more substantial and future-proof.

Until that next project "in the original WoW design space" comes to light, Season of Discovery players aren't being hung out to dry, at least. If you cleared Balnazzar in the last raid tier, you get a free level boost in Mists of Pandaria Classic, which is set to release in July; though on Bluesky, Aggrend did clarify that transferring off of a SoD server to another game version won't be possible. And if you're more of a purist, you're welcome to join me in dying repeatedly on the Hardcore servers.

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Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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