Almost 12 years after its launch, World of Warcraft is still the most subscribed MMO on the market. In monthly subscription fees alone, it regularly generates a billion dollars each year, or close to it. Though there are now less than half the amount of subscribers than the game had at its peak, the estimated 5.5 million subscribers is more than most MMOs can even dream of achieving. And that is in no small part due to the consistent updates the game receives. In fact, the game has more than tripled in size since its original release. Last week Warcraft was made into a film, and though it’s not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, it was highly enjoyable.

Below is an infographic detailing all of the major updates to the game, between it’s six expansions (or soon to be six) and all the major patches the game has received. This is an abridged overlook of some of the larger changes made to the game, and does not even come close to reflecting the sheer amount of new weapons, armor, stat buffs/debuffs, fixes, and smaller nuanced gameplay mechanics. This also doesn’t even bother listing the number of dungeons and raids added through each expansion. Take a look at the timeline of World of Warcraft patches below. (Click to enlarge).

This image has been edited to feature several more recent patches which were previously excluded for lack of unique art or logos. This was a mistake, and the updated image is an attempt to rectify that.

Although it may seem that in recent years Blizzard hasn’t done much in the way of patch updates, they do have plenty of content on the way. As far as overall content goes, the last few patches have been far more substantial than the older ones. But still, many fans may begin to worry that Blizzard will stop generating new content as the game continues to age. Legion, the games sixth full expansion, arrives later this Summer, but that won’t be the last we’ll see of Azeroth. Speaking to Gameplanet in 2014, Tom Chilton, the game director of World of Warcraft, had this to say:

“Our next expansion after that, we have a couple of different options that we’ll be choosing between over the next several months. Beyond that, there are about six or seven different ideas for expansions that we can take elements of and say, ‘You know what? Let’s take that and put it in this one for our next expansion after the next one.’ Or we might shift the timelines around from what we originally envisioned. There’s easily 10 years worth of stuff that we can draw from – more, really.”

Now seems like a great time to get back into the game, especially considering that if you pre-order World of Warcraft: Legion, you get an instant boost to level 100. If that isn’t incentive, I don’t know what is.

I hope you enjoy my infographic. Please like and share!

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