World of Warcraft Classic returns to Mists of Pandaria this July—marking a chance to return to the beloved expansion without the gulp frog melodrama

Everybody was kung-fu grinding.

Announced late last year, Mists of Pandaria Classic marks the next step in one of WoW’s many side-projects—to give those with a nostalgic hunger (or just those of you who dared to be born after 2004) an opportunity to experience the 20-year old MMO’s past expansions anew.

Well, now we know when it’s coming. As per a recent Blizzard blog post, Mists of Pandaria Classic will be arriving July 21—with a pre-patch arriving on current classic realms July 1.

Mists of Pandaria is a funny old beast. Initially feeling like a fever-dream, or an April fool’s joke gone too far, the expansion wound up being one of the most beloved by the game’s playerbase—I’ve often heard it praised for having one of the best levelling experiences in recent memory, a memorable storyline, and pitch-perfect vibes. It turns out, when you go all-in on a theme your MMO hasn’t touched before, it’s a real refresh.

MoP was so beloved, in fact, that Blizzard made an alt-universe time travelling romp dubbed Mists of Pandaria: Remix, allowing players to socket ultrapowerful gems and grind out account-wide cosmetics—as an added bonus, when the event ended, players were allowed to keep their character afterwards, transferring them to retail. Sans the game-breaking gear, obviously.

I hopped off during Cataclysm and returned during Warlords of Draenor (thanks in advance for your condolences) so I’d missed the boat on MoP. It was an absolute joy to experience Pandaria for the first time, even through a topsy-turvy lens.

It wasn’t as fun for those angling to find ways to farm and level their way through this bizarro version of the expansion in the most efficient way possible—gulp frog drama, controversial grinds, and the usual propensity for Blizzard to not get it right the first time around all reared their typical heads.

As such, I may well hop into Classic just to see what I’ve been missing. Remix was an absolute riot, but I can’t help but wonder what Mists of Pandaria was actually like, with an intended levelling path not coloured by my hunter’s dozen-odd gems that made them a terror.