WoW Classic Character Cloning Service Is Shutting Down July 26

Blizzard is shutting down World of Warcraft Classic’s character clone service on July 26, after a little over a year of availability.

The paid service allows players to make a copy of a WoW Classic character of their choice based on a “snapshot” of that character as they were on May 18, 2021. All players were given the option on a per-character basis prior to the release of Burning Crusade Classic last summer of whether or not to keep that character on what Blizzard now calls “Classic Era” realms or to progress to Burning Crusade. For players who couldn’t choose, character cloning let them do both for a small fee.

Blizzard didn’t give a specific reason for why the service is shutting down in its official blog, but character cloning will be on sale for $5 (66% off) until July 26. For players who haven’t made a choice for each of their character on whether to progress to Burning Crusade Classic or stay on a Classic Era realm by July 26, Blizzard says all characters will be moved forward into Burning Crusade Classic, with the Classic Era version of those characters being deleted.

When Blizzard first announced the character clone service last year, it found itself in hot water over what many players felt was a steep asking price for the service, as it was originally planned to be $35. After listening to player feedback, Blizzard cut the price of the service by more than half to $15.

Burning Crusade Classic just received its final content update, Fury of the Sunwell. Blizzard is planning on releasing a Classic version of the game’s beloved Wrath of the Lich King expansion later this year. When Wrath of the Lich King Classic does arrive, all Burning Crusade servers will automatically be converted into Wrath of the Lich King servers. While Wrath of the Lich King Classic will operate on the expansion’s final patch, it won’t include features like the automated dungeon finder or minimap quest tracking, which Blizzard says isn’t in the spirit of the Classic WoW’s “core values.”