MMO players blast "disgusting" $90 early access charge for WoW: The War Within - "We must say early and loudly that this is not okay"

World of Warcraft: The War Within was announced alongside two other expansions as part of the Worldsoul Saga at BlizzCon 2023, and first impressions from players seem to be pretty positive, with one notable exception: nobody's happy about the idea of paying $90 for three days of early access to the new content.

There are three ways to purchase The War Within. You can get the $50 base edition, or you can upgrade to the $70 heroic edition if you want access to a bonus mount and transmog set. Or, if you want even more digital goodies, you can grab the $90 epic edition, which includes some other tchotchkes, plus 30 days of game time, guaranteed access to the beta, and three days worth of early access to the expansion itself.

Paying extra for early access to a major new release has become increasingly commonplace - heck, Blizzard already did it with Diablo 4 early access - but it's a whole different ball game for MMO fans. The word "disgusting" keeps coming up, again and again (and again and again). MMOs already trade pretty heavily on FOMO, so players fear that buying into that super-expensive version might start to feel like a necessity if you want to keep pace with your guildmates.

"Fuck that sucks," Reddit user Castia10 says. "Played every single game on release night but this is honestly a disappointment. The best thing about WoW is that new expansion hype in the first week. Who the fuck wants to start later?"

"We must say EARLY and LOUDLY that this is not okay," as DJ_Marxman puts it. "Not even in the vicinity of okay. This is dogshit and we must tell them as much."

"Having it locked behind a nearly double price point is beyond scummy... it's robbery," One_Reputation_1048 says.

"This isn't 'early' access, that is just the de facto date the game comes out," itisntme2 argues. "They are just charging an extra fee to people who want to play the game on the release date. Don't be fooled by PR speak."

We don't yet know when The War Within is set to launch - only that it'll be sometime "on or before December 31, 2024," according to the store page. Or, if you want to spend a lot of extra money, sometime on or before December 28, 2024.

If you missed our BlizzCon live coverage, you may want to catch up on the details about WoW Cataclysm Classic and Season of Discovery.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.