A new book listing for an Untitled World of Warcraft Dragonflight prequel novel has been found on Amazon with a release date of November 22, 2022. This has led to speculation about the potential release window for the Dragonflight expansion.
It took no time for members of the WoW community to begin to speculate. The listing was shared by WoWHead, which takes into account that Shadows Rising, the prequel novel, came out four months before the Shadowlands expansion came out and Illidan, the novel prequel to Legion also came out four months before that expansion. Their prediction is March 2023.
Community members on Reddit were also debating what this might mean for a potential release. User Kynmarcher5000 speculated on a February-March window based on Blizzard’s statements about Shadowlands declaring that Season 4 would be a shorter season, pre-release patch releases, and alpha and beta testing timing.
“The prequel books come out roughly around the same time as the pre-expansion patch, with launch happening a short while later. The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm released on October 19th, 2010, which was a week after the pre-expansion patch dropped for that expansion (which released on October 12th). So at the very least, we have a general idea of when the expansion pre-patch is going to drop.”
It seems that there’s a good chance that we could be seeing Dragonflight in Q1, but there’s still nothing official, of course. But with the many releases over the years of tie-in novels and prequels, these do seem like they might be on track.
With several recent announcements, from the Dragonflight expansion reveal itself to major updates including Wrath of the Lich King headed to Classic, as well as Season 4, the World of Warcraft calendar does look pretty full.
Speculation will of course continue until Blizzard has an announcement on when we might expect the expansion, but we should also have more of an idea when there’s a title and description for this upcoming novel too. Of course, the date might not even be a firm one to speculate around but such is the nature of anticipation, something that after 17 years and counting isn’t new to the WoW community.
