Also, in Activision-Blizzard's 2011 Q4 financials call, only Diablo III was confidently predicted to be released in 2012 with a possible second release being either Mists of Pandaria or StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.
Some analysts doubted it would be released in 2012. įinally, Medievaldragon of Blizzplanet wrote a very nice, comprehensive article about the speculation surrounding the rumors and Pandaria in general. Strangely, a gaming and technology blogger said that there was a leak about the next expansion being focused on the island of Pandaria back in March 2011. 1UP actually tried to contact Blizzard about this and the reply was "not ready to reveal any details at this time". MMO Champion's speculation that it might be the next expansion was met by skepticism by several media outlets. Details about the Collector's Edition and the Digital Deluxe Edition were included. Ī release date for the expansion was announced to be September 25th, 2012 with digital pre-orders starting on the announcement date of July 25th, 2012. Kotaku pointed out that a similar early registration of "Cataclysm" turned out to be the new expansion name. MMO Champion speculated that "Mists of Pandaria" could be the name for the next expansion and turned out to be correct.
Blizzplanet reported the announcement was to be made at BlizzCon 2011 from sources during gamescom 2011. It is the fourth expansion of World of Warcraft, after Cataclysm. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is a name trademarked by Blizzard Entertainment. ← indicates new info from March 2012 Press Event!