World of Warcraft Classic Announces Realm Consolidation Schedule for Season of Discovery

World of Warcraft Classic has officially outlined its upcoming plan for a major Realm consolidation in its Season of Discovery game mode, set to take place on September 19. With all but two Realms closing to new players, this move is expected to be the final one for players needing to relocate their characters before the end of the Season of Discovery experiment.

The Season of Discovery is WoW Classic's latest experimental mode, offering players the chance to discover class-changing Runes, battle reimagined versions of iconic encounters, and explore brand-new dungeons. As this mode has progressed, WoW Classic has undergone several Realm consolidations to maintain server stability. Recently, Blizzard announced one final consolidation aimed at merging all players into a single PvE and PvP “megaserver” for each region.

Blizzard has now revealed the timeline for this transition. On September 17, Wild Growth will become the main PvE server, while Crusader’s Strike (or Living Flame for EU players) will serve as the primary PvP server. Characters from all other servers will be eligible for free transfers to the corresponding megaserver that matches their original Realm’s PvE or PvP designation. While players can choose to stay on their current server, new accounts won’t be allowed to create characters there—only those with existing characters will be able to create additional toons.

WoW Classic Season of Discovery Realm Consolidation Timeline

September 12  

- Character creation is temporarily disabled on destination Realms: Wild Growth (US and EU), Crusader Strike (US), and Living Flame (EU).

September 17  

- All Realms, except the destination Realms, are locked to new players.  

- Free character transfers to destination Realms become available for characters on all other servers.  

- Character names from accounts inactive since July 11 can be claimed by transferring or newly created characters.

September 19  

- Character creation on the destination Realms reopens.

To make the transition smoother, character creation on Crusader’s Strike, Living Flame, and both the US and EU Wild Growth servers was temporarily disabled. This prevents players from securing character names early, ensuring that those transferring have a fair shot at keeping their existing names. These restrictions will be lifted on September 19, just a couple of days after transfers begin.

Blizzard will also use the Name Reclamation feature during this process, allowing transferring or new characters to claim names from accounts that haven’t been active since July 11, the start of Season of Discovery Phase 4. Players who haven’t logged in since then but wish to retain their names will need to log into Vanilla WoW before the merger takes place.

With any luck, this will be the last time Season of Discovery players will need to transfer their characters until the experiment concludes. That said, Phase 5 of WoW Classic Season of Discovery is set to begin on September 26, giving players plenty of time to adjust before focusing on the next phase of content.