Blizzard announced in a blue post on its forums that low-populationWorld of Warcraft Classic:The BurningCrusadeservers will be merged this summer, in an effort to maintain healthy server populations. This is going to be effecting a large group of both NA and EU based servers.
The first expansion ofWorld of Warcraft Classicwas released on June 13, 2025. High population servers such as Faerlina, Herod, and Whitemane were subjected to lengthy queue times. As the expansion progressed, players started leaving the game in droves and certain servers began to die out entirely.
RELATED:World of Warcraft Classic: Fury of the Sunwell Update is Live
Queue times and heavily populated serversaren’t unique toWorld of Warcraft Classic.Blizzard offered free transfers to low population realms from specific realms, but it didn’t help. Instead, it inflated already heavily populated servers while driving lower-populated servers to the extreme. There were restrictions based on server type, but those are going to be lifted. Blizzard will be consolidating any characters on the remaining low population servers onto others with higher populations. The consolidation and retiring of realms will be happening on June 27, 2025, during the weekly maintenance. Blizzard has yet to release where characters will be transferred to, but free transfers off low-population realms are still available.
Population issues andfaction imbalance inWorld of Warcraft,both classic and live, have been normal since release. Long-time players tend to go Horde over Alliance because of their advantage in PvE content. This creates huge chasms across many servers. Alliance players experience griefing issues in the open world (especially on PvP servers). Horde players are in constant competition with others members of the faction making certain resources scarce and expensive. The competition makes it difficult for many players to access parts of game, forcing casual players to rely on gold-sellers, so they could purchase the items needed to perform properly in content.
Since the announcementMicrosoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzardthere have been a lot of mixed reactions from industry insiders and players alike about the future of the franchise. Solving population issues on servers is a step in the right direction. It can allow players who don’t want to spend money on server transfers, or gold, another chance at finding the right community that they want to play with as the player sees fit.
Some players may not be keen on server merges. Low population servers gave players the chance to totally control the server they were on assuming they had a consistent group of people to play with. Since it hasn’t been announced where these players will be going, it’s in the realm of possibility that these players could be transferred to already packed servers. Many players anticipate large queue times onceWorld of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich Kinggets released in the future.
NA Servers being consolidated: Anathema, Bigglesworth, Blaumeux, Deviate Delight, Fairbanks, Felstriker, Heartseeker, Herod, Incendius, Kirtonos, Kromcrush, Kurinnaxx, Loatheb, Netherwind, Rattlegore, Reaper, Skeram, Smolderweb, Stalagg, Sul’Thraze, Thalnos, and Thunderfury.
EU Servers being consolidated: Bloodfang, Celebras, Dragon’s Call, Dragonfang, Dreadmist, Finkle, Flamelash, Gandling, Harbinger of Doom, Heartstriker, Hydraxian Waterlords, Judgement, Lucifron, Noggenfogger, Rhok’delar, Shazzrah, Skullflame, Stonespine, Ten Storms, Wyrmthalak, and Zandalar Tribe.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusadeis available to play on PC.
