World of Warcraft Classic cost to play

World of Warcraft Classic is Blizzard's re-release of its online role-playing game as it was in patch 1.12.1, around September 2006, before the first expansion. It launched on 26 August 2019, almost fifteen years after the original game came out on 23 November 2004 in North America and 11 February 2005 in Europe. Since then Blizzard has added more Classic versions alongside it, including Hardcore servers in 2023, anniversary realms in 2024 and Mists of Pandaria Classic in 2025.

How it plays

World of Warcraft Classic is an online role-playing game (MMORPG) that brings back the original World of Warcraft, which Blizzard calls "the game that sparked it all". You create a character, choose to fight for the Horde or the Alliance, and adventure across the continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, levelling up to 60 with other players.

Blizzard's own posts describe the main ways to play. Normal PvE and PvP realms progress through the Classic Era phases of content, opening raids such as Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair over time. On Hardcore realms death is final: a character who dies can only carry on by transferring to a Normal PvE realm. Players there can choose to make Self-Found characters that cannot trade with others, send or receive most mail or use the auction house.

The Anniversary realms add some later conveniences, such as a Looking for Group tool to create, join and browse parties, and an improved PvP Honor ranking system. Mists of Pandaria Classic is also included in the subscription.

What it costs

There is no separate price for Classic. Blizzard's EN-GB shop says a single World of Warcraft subscription gives access to both the current game and WoW Classic, including levels 1 to 60 in World of Warcraft Classic and 1 to 90 in Mists of Pandaria Classic.

Blizzard raised UK subscription prices on 22 June 2026. The new recurring prices, from Blizzard's own announcement of 22 April 2026, are:

• 1 month: £10.99 (was £9.99)
• 3 months: £30.43 (was £28.17), about £10.14 a month
• 6 months: £55.79 (was £52.14), about £9.30 a month
• 12 months: £111.58 (was £104.28), about £9.30 a month

A year of monthly payments at £10.99 comes to £131.88, so the 12-month plan saves £20.30. Existing subscribers moved to the new price at their first billing date after 22 June. Blizzard said prices for the 60-day game time card, the WoW Token and other services would follow in a later update to the same post; when we read it on 4 October the post hadn't been edited since 22 April, so we have no official UK price for those.

The current game's latest expansion, Midnight, is sold separately, but Classic needs only the subscription. There are no paid random items in Classic. The cost to play is the subscription.

Players

Classic isn't sold on Steam, and Blizzard doesn't publish player numbers, so we have no player count for it. We won't estimate one.

Age ratings

pegi.info has no entry for World of Warcraft Classic on its own. It rates World of Warcraft PEGI 12 for violence (PC, 2005), and its expansions from Warlords of Draenor (2014) up to Midnight (March 2026) are also PEGI 12, Midnight for moderate violence and bad language. Because Classic is part of the same subscription and the same game, we use that PEGI 12 rating. That meets our audience rule (rated 12 or over).

How we checked

UK prices come from Blizzard's post on its EU forums, and what the subscription covers from Blizzard's EN-GB Battle.net shop, both read in a browser on 4 October 2026 (the shop showed no pound prices without signing in). Ratings come from pegi.info on the same day. Release dates and the 1.12.1 patch come from Wikipedia. The gameplay description is based on Blizzard's own WoW Classic posts on worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com.

Page images: frames from official trailers on Blizzard's World of Warcraft YouTube channel: the Classic 20th Anniversary Edition launch trailer, the "The Return" trailer and the Season of Discovery Phase 4 launch trailer. © Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All trademarks belong to their owners. GamesChart is not endorsed by or affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment.