WoW players who pre-order The War Within will get 3-day early access—and fans are rightfully upset

World of Warcraft’s next expansion The War Within was announced earlier today at BlizzCon and despite a substantial amount of hype surrounding the next chapter of WoW, the community has already been hamstrung.

The War Within will be the first WoW expansion to feature an early access period as players who order the “Epic Edition” of the expansion will get access to its content three days prior to the rest of the player base. This move by Blizzard has already lit a fire within the WoW community, with players on social media calling for an immediate reversal of this feature. 

“[I] played every single game on release night but this is honestly a disappointment,” one veteran WoW player said. “The best thing about WoW is that new expansion hype in the first week, who the fuck wants to start later.”

We would tend to agree with that sentiment. Some of the best moments in WoW have come in the first week of new expansion launches, and particularly in recent years, it’s been incredible to see so many WoW players—both new and returning—enjoying all of the fresh content at the same pace. 

The launch period of a WoW expansion is one of the most hyped moments for players as the beginning of an update has a tendency to bring everyone together. With more players than usual making zones feel alive, WoW’s content always has a sense of elevated importance when it’s fresh, but putting those sacred experiences—ones that only come around once every few years—behind a paywall for certain players feels less than desirable.

Furthermore, if you’re one of the players who enjoys watching the race to the game’s new max-level cap—or are even one of the players who indulges in the grind themselves—a three-day head start will make for a night-and-day difference. By the time the standard-edition purchasers even log into the game for the first time, many of the players who purchased the Epic Edition could be miles into the endgame, creating an obvious and negative disparity between those who plunked down the extra money and those who didn’t.

Another WoW player refused to describe the strategy as early access, but instead as “delayed access for everyone else.” Another said early access for a game like Diablo 4 didn’t come as a surprise but for WoW would be widely panned. “Either way, I’m stubborn and not fucking paying extra for some contrived privilege.”

Blizzard has not issued any statement on this controversial feature at this time, but with about a year to go until the launch of The War Within, it’s likely that the silence will be broken between now and then.

The WoW developers made it a point to listen to the community’s demands and wants more often during the course of Dragonflight, and if WoW players are united against this financial model for the game’s next expansion, it’s possible the development team will take feedback into account and implement a change.