WoW: Midnight Release Date Announced

I would probably open with a reference to Iron Maiden’s “2 Minutes to Midnight” in the wake of the following announcement, but there will be a considerably longer wait than that as of the time of writing. Blizzard Entertainment has revealed the release date for World of Warcraft: Midnight, the second of three expansions that comprise the so-called “Worldsoul Saga.” Blizzard has also shared a few more details about what players can expect leading up to Midnight’s launch – and confused legions of international players with the official launch date announcement trailer. I’ve summarized all of that as best I can.

World of Warcraft: Midnight is currently slated to launch on Monday, March 2nd, 2026. What confused non-American players about that is that Blizzard’s official announcement trailer displays the date as “3/2/26” rather than spelling out “March 2, 2026.” It seems Blizzard forgot that not every country uses the month/day/year format of writing dates, and plenty of players from outside the United States have pointed out Blizzard’s folly. So much so that Blizzard has had to amend social media posts to clarify that whole situation, all of which could’ve been avoided if they’d simply spelled that out in the official trailer.

Starting on December 2nd, 2025 – exactly three months before Midnight’s planned launch – all players who have pre-ordered any of the three digital editions of Midnight will be granted early access to the Midnight expansion’s player housing system. Blizzard stated that all those players will be able to “join a neighborhood, choose a house, and start customizing their new home with Housing Early Access” starting on December 2nd alongside the launch of “The Warning,” Midnight’s prologue content update. Blizzard also mentioned in that same statement that Midnight will launch at 3 PM PDT on March 2nd, which leads me to surmise that they’ll use their “global launch schedule” again.