When will World of Warcraft Classic’s The Burning Crusade be released?

We finally know when players will be able to walk through the Dark Portal and begin their Burning Crusade Classic journey. 

Blizzard announced yesterday that World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic will officially launch globally on June 1 at 5pm CT.

The expansion will begin at the same time in every region.

In preparation for the legacy version of WoW’s first expansion, Blizzard also announced that a pre-patch will be coming on May 18.

At that time, players will be able to play the new races coming in TBC and level them before the Dark Portal opens.

For the Alliance, players will be able to start playing Draenei, while the Horde will gain access to Blood Elves. Each race will also introduce a class to their faction that was previously not playable.

Draenei can be shamans, a class that used to be exclusive to the Horde. Blood Elves will be playable as paladins, a class that only the Alliance could play in Classic.

The move to have Draenei and Blood Elves available during the pre-patch is a change from the way the content was originally released in 2006 to 2007.

At the same time, players will be able to purchase level 58 boosts as a part of a “Dark Portal Pass” beginning on May 18 during the pre-patch. This will give players two weeks to gear up a character prior to TBC’s June 1 release.

Character boosts won’t be usable on Blood Elves or Draenei and can only be used once per account. Those boosts will cost $39.99.