Blizzard President Shoots Down World of Warcraft Pirate Expansion Rumors

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has been out for nearly a year now, which means we're getting close to when developer Blizzard Entertainment usually starts to tease the MMO's next expansion. Many players thought it was doing just that when it announced that the Seafarer's Pack was coming to the in-game item shop. The pack includes several pirate-themed items, leading fans to believe that the next expansion might be pirate-themed. After all, Blizzard has done that kind of thing in the past, so it's well within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately for speculating World of Warcraft fans, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra quickly sank those ships last night.

The news was first spotted by the team at Wowhead, who noticed that Ybarra had responded to a user on Twitter who was talking about the potential pirate-themed expansion. Strangely, the original user (daveatano) didn't tag Ybarra, but another user replied to Dave's original tweet and tagged several members of the World of Warcraft dev team. Ybarra chimed in after that with a to-the-point "No pirates." It's hard to get any more clear than that. Whatever World of Warcraft's next expansion ends up being, it won't take players to the high seas unless Ybarra and the team change their minds very soon.

No pirates.

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) September 4, 2023

None of this changes the fact that World of Warcraft's next expansion is likely imminent. While Dragonflight has been mostly well-received since launch, it is starting to wind down. The 2023 roadmap Blizzard shared confirmed that several new pieces of content are coming with Patch 10.2 and Season 3 later this year, but that's probably one of the last few major additions we'll get before Blizzard starts to ramp things up ahead of the next expansion.

When Will We Learn About World of Warcraft's Next Expansion?

Generally, we first hear about new World of Warcraft expansions at BlizzCon. Considering this year is the return to in-person attendance after four years of digital-only events, it would make sense for Blizzard to pull out all the stops and deliver several massive announcements. While a new World of Warcraft expansion wouldn't be the biggest announcement considering it's so expected this year, it would make for an excellent side meal at the table. 

Either way, if we don't hear about the next WoW expansion at BlizzCon, it would be incredibly surprising. Blizzard has released a new expansion every other year since 2008's Wrath of the Lich King. To break that cycle 15 years after it started would be a very strange decision from Blizzard unless it has something even bigger than usual in the works. It is possible that could be the case. After all, 2024 will be World of Warcraft's 20th anniversary, so Blizzard might have something larger than a normal expansion in the works, though that's just speculation. Regardless, we'll almost definitely hear about what's next for World of Warcraft at BlizzCon in November.