World of Warcraft character names to be reclaimed from inactive accounts

Screenshot.world Of Warcraft Warlords Of Draenor cropped

World of Warcraft has been active for over ten years now, and a lot of players have come and gone in that time. As you'd expect, finding a unique character name these days is a bit of a hassle, so Blizzard will free up the names of all inactive accounts when patch 6.2 launches later this week. That means any character names that haven't been accessed since December 7, 2010 will become newly available.

"Our goal with this great name liberation is to make sure new and returning players have a large and varied pool of names available to choose from," Blizzard wrote. "So log in now if you wish to preserve your unused characters’ names for your ongoing journey through Draenor."

We spoke to WoW lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas about patch 6.2 a couple of weeks ago. In case you missed the news, flying mounts are being introduced to Draenor, which is nice.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.