Blizzard is WoTLK Classic Gold expected to announce WoW's next expansion on April 19. This announcement's time of release (most new WoW expansions are typically announced on the eve of BlizzCon in November before being released roughly a year or longer later) makes a lot of fans believe that WoW's next expansion isn't expected until in the first part of 2023. The possibility that Blizzard is currently planning one more Shadowlands season to cover the remaining time in 2022 seems to confirm this notion."We don't make these kind of changes lightly," Wrath of the Lich King Classic principal designer Kris Zierhut said in a recent group interview P2Pah was a part of. "They originate from the most fundamental beliefs about what Classic is all about. We believe that Classic is about being social, making friends, having fun with new people. In order for that to happen, you have to meet them on several occasions, to have a chance for a game with them and later play with them the second time and say 'Oh yeah I remember that person who was so cool this time around, perhaps I should include him on my friend's list. Perhaps I should add him on my list of people who I make groups with in dungeons,' after you've completed a successful Dungeon Run. We're keen to focus on social and we also want to make the most of the world and the immersion in our world."

The changes that are coming to Wrath of the Lich King Classic are a good indication of how much Blizzard's approach has changed since the first time it released WoW Classic in 2019. At the time, Blizzard sought to recreate "vanilla" WoW as it was back in 2006 in the closest way possible, with as few changes as possible. But over time, specifically towards the end of WoW Classic's content release cycle , and as part of Blizzard's re-release of the game's initial expansion, The Burning Crusade, the game's philosophy buy WOW WoTLK Classic Gold changed.