WoW Classic 'Camelot' Datamined Ahead of BlizzCon Reveal
Blizzard has surfaced as the likely developer behind a project codenamed World of Warcraft Camelot, after dataminer Stiven found heroic and epic license entries in game files that appear on a separate branch from the retail client - with a BlizzCon 2026 announcement already teased for World of Warcraft Classic, the buy-to-play, subscription-based MMO.
According to WoWhead, which first reported the find, the Camelot branch is tied to the July 2006 client build associated with patch 1.6 and Blackwing Lair rather than any modern retail code. Community trackers have logged at least 29 distinct encrypted builds for a mysterious Classic 1.60 patch since those builds appeared on Blizzard's CDN in October 2025, indicating sustained development rather than a one-off test environment. The dominant read among Classic players is that Camelot is the long-requested Classic Plus - an expanded, original-era game running alongside retail, following the template Jagex established with Old School RuneScape.
Blizzard executive producer Holly Longdale was conspicuously cut off mid-sentence during the State of Azeroth presentation in January 2026 while telling Classic players they had "a lot to look forward to," a moment the community has treated as deliberate staging ahead of the BlizzCon reveal. The heroic and epic licensing tiers found in the datamine have prompted debate on r/classicwow about whether Camelot will carry an aggressive monetisation structure closer to modern expansions.
Private Server Campaign Runs in Parallel
The datamine lands alongside Blizzard's sharpest legal push against Classic-style private servers to date. Earlier in 2026, Blizzard secured a full shutdown of Turtle WoW, one of the largest Custom Classic Plus private servers, stripping its website and realms. That action followed earlier moves against Everlook and Epoch, and a separate lawsuit targeting Project Ascension. The pattern is consistent with a company clearing the field before launching its own competing product - Classic progression realms are also approaching Warlords of Draenor, the expansion that originally drove demand for legacy servers and, eventually, the creation of official WoW Classic in 2019.
Nothing has been officially confirmed by Blizzard. Watchers are tracking further encrypted 1.60 builds and any additional licensing entries on the CDN as the clearest early signal of how standalone - and how monetised - Camelot will be when BlizzCon arrives in September.
Further reading: WoW Classic 'Camelot' Datamined as Blizzard Targets Private Servers - Eurogamer