When does arena season 3 start in WoW Classic TBC?

Prepare yourself.

WoW warriors battle with each other in an arena.
Image via Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft Classic TBC’s second PvP season has officially come to an end, leaving many players curious about when the game’s next one will start. While Blizzard hasn’t officially announced an exact date for the next season, there are a few indicators that give us a general idea of what to expect.

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Classic TBC has now had two arena seasons. The first started on June 16 and ended on Sept. 7. The second started one week later on Sept. 14 and ended on Monday, Jan. 10.

In an official post to Blizzard’s forums, the developer indicated that season three and phase three content for Classic will come “at a later date in early 2022.”

Because of the PvP reward system, it’s likely that Blizzard is trying to make sure that season three’s release lines up with tier six raid content that’s coming with the upcoming phase. 

Blizzard has consistently shown during TBC Classic that it doesn’t feel the need to follow the release patterns that it did when TBC was originally released in the mid-2000s. For that reason, players shouldn’t expect the same two-day season-to-season turnaround that originally existed when the game came out.

Instead, it appears that Blizzard is more interested in making sure that tier six raid content is prepared before moving forward. While Blizzard hasn’t set any specific date for the new phase either, testing for raids in that phase has been going on since early December.

Given the patterns that Blizzard has followed in the past with TBC, one could expect that the game should be moving into phase three within the next two weeks or so, bringing on the new PvP arena season.

The ambiguity that the developer is using in its posts is consistent with much of what it has announced throughout TBC Classic. Not wanting to disappoint fans by pushing back a release date, Blizzard has regularly said that releases will be “coming soon.” Definitive dates for releases have frequently been only one or two weeks’ worth of a heads up. So keep your eyes peeled for an announcement in the next week or so. 

This article will be updated when Blizzard officially announces the start of arena season three.

Author
Image of Max Miceli
Max Miceli
Senior Staff Writer. Max graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism and political science degree in 2015. He previously worked for The Esports Observer covering the streaming industry before joining Dot where he now helps with Overwatch 2 coverage.