World of Warcraft Classic adds Hardcore Realms with permadeath

World of Warcraft Classic is a way to time travel back to the earliest days of the MMORPG’s history and re-experience the original game. Blizzard also has added optional modern touches to the game like seasonal runs. Blizzard released Hardcore Realms on Wednesday. These realms enforce new rules that are more challenging than the normal adventure in Azeroth.

For instance, if you die in Classic on a Hardcore Realm, you die forever. Permadeath does exist, but you can still log in as a Ghost to complete your affairs. Guild leaders might hand over the reins to an actual colleague or go through their mail. All players can do is create a new player and start over after permadeath.

When it comes to PVP, it’s a whole new game. There are no Battlegrounds; it’s tough to do capture-the-flag without killing the flag carrier. Players can instead engage in duel… until the end. Type /makgora in front of another player, and if they accept, it’s do or die. Players who engage in duels will earn a new tracking aura that shows off just how many duels they’ve survived.

Blizzard will make every effort to ensure that unintended deaths, like those caused by the flightmaster are minimized. Resurrection powers will no longer be available to classes, preventing sneaky escapes. Players also won’t be able to kite enemies out of their zone, so the common tactic of pulling a big bad to a lower level quest area isn’t possible.

The Hardcore Realm enters testing on June 29, and it’s expected to go live later this year.