World Of Warcraft Classic Might Get Hardcore Realms Soon

The latest test realm update might have provided World of Warcraft Classic players their first clue that a hardcore mode is on the way.

Currently, World of Warcraft has no built-in hardcore mode, but players on the game’s Classic servers have taken to following a set of rules to simulate the experience. The biggest rule, naturally, is that death is permanent; you die, you delete your character. But keeping WoW Classic players honest is the Hardcore add-on. This unobtrusive mod keeps track of whether your character has died or not. As soon as you die, your info gets sent to the add-on’s online database confirming your death, and then you can roll a new character.

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As noted by PC Gamer, there are a few more rules like not being able to group up with non-hardcore players for raids and dungeons, but by and large, death is permanent and irrevocable (outside a few exceptions for technical glitches).

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Right now, the vast majority of WoW Classic hardcore players are on the Bloodsail Buccaneers and Hydraxian Waterlords realms, but it would be a lot easier for hardcore players if they could just have their own dedicated servers. Hardcore players have been calling for exactly that, and soon, they might just get it.

First spotted by @Meorawr on Twitter (and posted by Solanya) was a line of code on World of Warcraft’s 10.1 public test realm. The data revealed a “hardcore warning” message that would pop up if the player selected a hardcore realm or created a hardcore character. A few days later, however, and the code was removed.

Hardcore has been growing in popularity in WoW, and you can see quite a few posts concerning the community-run game mode over on the WoW Classic subreddit. This brief appearance of code might just be the first indication that a hardcore mode is in the works. Until Blizzard makes an official announcement, however, we’re left wondering just when such a hardcore update might arrive.

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