World of Warcraft

2004 video game by Blizzard Entertainment

Original description from the source, not translated.

YEAR 2004

GENRE RPG

PLATFORM Microsoft Windows, macOS

ABOUT THE GAME

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Windows and macOS. Set in the Warcraft universe, World of Warcraft takes place within the fictional planet Azeroth, approximately four years after the events of the previous game in the series, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The game was announced in 2001 and was released for the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, World of Warcraft has had eleven major expansion packs: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), Cataclysm (2010), Mists of Pandaria (2012), Warlords of Draenor (2014), Legion (2016), Battle for Azeroth (2018), Shadowlands (2020), Dragonflight (2022), The War Within (2024), and Midnight (2026). The next expansion, The Last Titan, was announced in 2023 and revealed at Blizzcon 2026 for a late 2027 release. World of Warcraft was inspired by other MMORPGs, particularly EverQuest, but addressed accessibility by changing mechanics around dying and grouping. A player can create a character avatar and navigate an open game world in third- or first-person view, explore the landscape, fight various monsters, complete quests, and interact with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. While the game encourages players to work together to complete quests, enter dungeons, and engage in player versus player (PvP) combat, it can also be played solo, without interacting with others. The game primarily focuses on character progression, in which players earn experience points (XP) to level up their character to make them more powerful, obtain better equipment by defeating monsters and completing challenges, and buy and sell items using in-game currency, among other game systems.

Source: Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 — World of Warcraft · retrieved October 19, 2026

Text is shortened from the original article; the full version is linked.

PROVENANCE

Fields on this page come from the catalog record and recorded sources. No popularity or rating claims are added.