'World of Warcraft Classic Hardcore' brings permadeath to Blizzard's MMO

Blizzard is bringing hardcore servers to World of Warcraft Classic. Inspired by the game’s popular “Death = Delete” community add-on, the mode limits any character you create to exactly one life. If your hero dies, running back to their body as a ghost won’t bring them back to life, nor can someone else resurrect your character with a class ability like the Shaman’s Ancestral Spirit spell. You also can’t use abilities like the Warlock’s Soulstone spell to bring your character back to life on their own. Oh, and Paladins won’t be able to bubble hearth out of sticky situations.

Your character won’t disappear after they die. Instead, they will remain as a ghost, so you can stay in touch with guildmates and any friends you met during your adventure. And if you want to continue playing your character after their untimely demise, Blizzard will offer free transfers to non-hardcore servers.

This being World of Warcraft we’re talking about, you have to imagine some people will try to trick other players into killing their own characters. To that point, Blizzard says Classic Hardcore will feature restrictions not found in other versions of the game. For instance, you won’t be able to kite a monster from one area to another in hopes of it terrorizing low-level characters. You also will need to deliberately flag yourself for PvP combat before you can attack another player. “We’ve added this failsafe to prevent situations in which a player could unintentionally take aggressive action against another player who is flagged for PvP, and unwittingly flag themselves,” notes Blizzard.

Speaking of PvP, Classic Hardcore will feature less of an emphasis on player-versus-player combat. You can’t queue for battlegrounds, for example, but Blizzard is introducing a new dueling mechanic that allows players to challenge one another to a fight to the death. Slaying an opposing player in such a duel will impart a permanent cosmetic buff called “String of Ears” on your character that tracks the number of players you’ve successfully taken down.

Hardcore servers will arrive in World of Warcraft Classic before the end of summer. Before then, a public test build of the new mode will go live on June 29th.