The PTR is updating with a new build which has been marked as a release candidate, which usually indicates the patch is close, but we really knew that already considering the expansion is a little under 5 weeks away. While this at least means there could be a release soon, release candidates have been known to get a variable number of iterations, so we didn't really narrow the timeframe down by much, if at all.



This image brought to you by massively annoying Nvidia popups.

The other big thing to talk about is recent discussions about the season end warning, as we're not quite sure that what we got tucked inside the big "what's coming in the pre-patch" blue post is really how Blizzard would want to announce that, especially considering there's no context for the actual time until the season ends or the time the post-season will last.

Season Ending Announcement? (source)

BATTLE FOR AZEROTH PVP SEASON 4 ENDS AND THE POST-SEASON BEGINS

The gates will soon close on Battle for Azeroth PvP Season 4 with the release of the Shadowlands pre-expansion patch. Don’t worry though, you’ll still be able to take part in competitive PvP in a special post-season, which will end with the launch of the expansion. The new Shadowlands Season 1 will then go live shortly after the launch of Shadowlands.

If you participated in Season 4, to ensure you receive the rewards that you’re due, please keep the following in mind:

Refrain from transferring your character(s) to another realm or faction until after Battle for Azeroth Season 4 has ended. Battle for Azeroth Season 4 titles and mounts will be awarded approximately two weeks after the season ends. Previous end of season announcements often mentioned a time window that the post-season will last, which would have given us the pre-patch launch date, so that's a strike against the theory. However, the Legion end of expansion / season 7 close post also didn't mention a specific duration, but it DID get its own separate article on the WoW site.

So the only thing we can gather from this is that we still have no specific information on when the pre-patch might be coming. It seems almost definitive that we'll be seeing it on or before October 6th/7th, which would make it just under 2 weeks from the big blue post, but it could also come next week, or as some players somewhat too hopefully wish, tomorrow. We still estimate that the most likely release date is October 6th/7th, and we've gone over why in a separate post already.

In any case, the release candidate does at least give us some solid ground with Schrodinger's pre-patch, aka we at least now know there IS a cat in the box.

