The Ruby Sanctum is supposed to be the last raid content patch for WoW WotLK Classic. With the official release date for the Halion raid instance being still unclear, we did some research in order to make a proper estimation on the Ruby Sanctum release. Here are three scenarios which we consider most realistic.
With the opening of Icecrown Citadel, Wrath of the Lich King Classic has just entered its most exciting phase. Azeroth's heroes will now try to fight up their way through the Citadel, having to beat eleven bosses to reach the evil Lich King and eventually end his reign.
If you manage to defeat the Lich King (who is considered to be one of the most challenging bosses World of Warcraft has ever seen), you'll have completed the expansion'e main story – congratulations! But – one raid boss still remains: Within the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight, you will be able to fight the dragon Halion in the Ruby Sanctum.
The Ruby Sanctum will definitely become part of the WotLK Classic experience – but it's pretty difficult to predict an exact release date. We'll tell you why.
WoW History: The Original Ruby Sanctum Release Was Pretty Pointless
The original Icecrown Citadel (ICC) patch was released in December 2009. Cataclysm was already confirmed to be the next WoW expansion, but it still took Blizzard a whole additional year to finish it (it was released in December 2010).
With WoW being a subscription-based game, it was pretty obvious that more and more players would cancel their subscription after finishing ICC. So, to give the community a reason to continue playing WoW, Blizzard released the Ruby Sanctum raid in June 2010, six months after ICC.
The problem with the raid, though, was that it was pretty pointless at that time. The loot wasn't much better than the one from ICC, and with only one boss encounter, Halion, which wasn't even very hard to beat, the Ruby Sanctum was rather disappointing.
When Will The Ruby Sanctum Hit The WotLK Classic Live Servers?
With WotLK Classic, the exciting question now is how fast Blizzard will implement the Ruby Sanctum into the game. There are a few possible scenarios:
Scenario 1: Blizzard Will Release The Ruby Sanctum Much Earlier
Since many players don't consider the Ruby Sanctum to be a satisfying raid experience, Blizzard might release the raid earlier this time – maybe already in late 2023 or early 2024. It very much depends on what they still have in line – more on that later.
Scenario 2: Halion Will Release When Player Base Drops To A Certain Level
No one can really predict how fast the majority of guilds will clear Icecrown Citadel, especially on heroic mode. However, the number of players who have fully cleared ICC will rise every day (especially when the raid-wide buff comes in) – and so will the risk of losing players.
From Blizzard's perspective, it would make sense to just wait for the moment when subscription cancelations reach a critical level – and then release the Ruby Sanctum to keep players or get them back.
This could very well be somewhere around March / April 2024, when the raid-wide ICC buff has reached its full power and helped most players to clear the content – similar to how it was in 2010.
Scenario 3: The Ruby Sanctum Will Hit The Live Servers Later, But With New Content
Last, but not least, another option we wouldn't rule out would be to release the Ruby Sanctum even later, but therefore with completely new content alongside Halion – in that case, our educated guess would be that the raid will not drop later than in mid-2024.
| Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Patch Release Dates So Far | ||
Expansion Release (Phase 1) | September 26, 2022 | |
| Ulduar (Phase 2) | January 19, 2023 | |
| Trial of the Crusader (Phase 3) | June 20, 2023 | |
| Icecrown Citadel (Phase 4) | October 10, 2023 |
The Future of WoW Classic Will Be The Deciding Factor
The crucial variable in all those scenarios is what Blizzard plans for the post-WotLK era. From the very first moments when WoW Classic was released, many players stated that they would love to play oldschool WoW until Wrath of the Lich King, but refuse to play a Cataclysm Classic (which was considered to be a rather unsatisfying expansion).
We actually can't image that Blizzard will give up on WoW Classic completely – there are just too many players preferring it to retail WoW, and the process of re-releasing older game versions is probably not all too costly. Our best guess would be that Blizzard will either bring on Cataclysm Classic or a version with bigger changes of it, to hopefully get also players that didn't like OG Cataclysm to play it.
Blizzcon 2023 will take place in early November – and besides the announcement of a new retail WoW expansion, we can also expect Blizzard to lift the secret about WoW Classic's future.
Taking all this into account, we consider a release of the original Ruby Sanctum raid in March / April 2024 to be most realistic, being followed by a Cataclysm Classic launch a few months later. As soon as Blizzard announces anything official, you will read it here.
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