World of Warcraft is the most popular MMO of all time. And why wouldn’t it be popular? It’s a fun, rich, and rewarding game to play. But can you play it for free?
To experience the entire game and its expansions, you need to pay for subscriptions and game time, and not everyone can shell out hundreds of bucks every year.
If you want to experience World of Warcraft but also value your hard-earned moolah, read the rest of this guide. We have detailed exactly how to play World of Warcraft for free below.
Is WoW free-to-play?
WoW is free-to-play until you hit level 20 with your character. When you create a new Battle.net account and download WoW, you’ll be able to create a character without paying a single dollar.
Blizzard allows players to test out WoW until level 20 in a gated environment with some limitations. You won’t get to have the full WoW experience while leveling up to level 20, but your time until then can help you decide whether you want to purchase the remaining expansions.
Limitations
- Most recent expansion content (quests, zones, allied characters, etc.)
- Characters above level 20, meaning you can only level up until 20
- Pet Battles
- Other chat channels and whispers to non-friends
- All guild-related functions
- Value-added services (character transfers, faction changes, etc.)
- Party formation
- Trade, mail, or the Auction House
- Real ID
- World of Warcraft voice chat. You can use Battle.net voice chat instead
- The Emote function in text chat
If you have never played WoW, then this option is certainly for you. By creating your first character and trying out the game for free, you’ll find out whether you actually dig it or not. Obviously, you won’t have access to many features, and you still need to download the full game, but if you’re uncertain, it’s better than blindly spending your money.
How to play WoW for free
There’s no rocket science involved when it comes to playing World of Warcraft for free. All you need to do is follow the steps we’ve elaborated on below:
- Visit the Battle.net account creation page for World of Warcraft
- Fill out the account creation form
- Click the Play it Free button
- Confirm your email address after the website advises you to
- Visit Blizzard’s website and download World of Warcraft from the list of games
- Open the WoW installer once it has finished downloading
- Log into your Battle.net account when you are prompted to
- Click Start Install when prompted
- Wait for the download and installation to finish
And now you’re all set to play the game.
As a free-to-play player, the features available for you will scratch the surface of the WoW gameplay experience, but, as we said, they’ll still be enough for you to get a decent feel for the game.
Features
- Create new characters
- World of Warcraft Classic characters are not accessible on Starter Edition accounts
- Level any character up to 20
- Earn up to 1,000 gold per character
- Chat in /say and /party channels
- Characters that are 10 or more levels higher than you will not see your /say messages
- Whisper World of Warcraft friends added by character name to your WoW in-game friend list
- RealID friends are not available to starter accounts
That’s basically it when it comes to playing WoW for free. If you’re unsure about buying the game, it’s a perfect choice to try Azeroth for yourself. Keep in mind the game has a few different modes in the game at the moment, like Season of Discovery, that introduce major changes to the gameplay, that you won’t be able to try with a free version.
