Blizzard Unveils World of Warcraft: Classic Hardcore With Permanent Character Death

Blizzard has announced that it will be introducing a new way to play World of Warcraft: Classic, by adding Hardcore realms where every death is permanent.

Hardcore realms will be added to the public test realm (PTR) starting tomorrow, June 29, and are planned for official release later this summer. On Hardcore realms, characters cannot run back to their corpses and revive after dying, or be resurrected by a spell. Character that have died can linger in the game world as a ghost, communicate with other players, explore, and do certain actions such as passing on guild leadership to living characters.

All Hardcore realms are considered PvE realms, with Blizzard stating it wants PvP to be "optional and intentional" given the stakes. A new feature called "Duel to the Death" will be available on Hardcore realms that allows players to choose to enter a PvP fight with another player full aware that one will not make it out alive.

Additionally, other small quality of life changes will exist on hardcore realms such as preventing quest-related NPCs from being attacked by players of the opposing faction, and adjustments to how creatures run back to their intended zones to keep players from kiting high-level monsters into low-level areas and killing players unexpectedly.

World of Warcraft: Classic was first released back in 2019 as a way for players to reexperience the original World of Warcraft as it was at launch after over a decade of updates, patches, and expansions. Blizzard has since updated the game, patch by patch, through The Burning Crusade expansion and into Wrath of the Lich King, with plans to continue releasing expansions and updates only if the community wants them. Hardcore realms, notably, will be brand new Classic Era servers – so no Lich King for hardcore players for now.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.