World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic is getting in on the summer sport festivities by bringing back an event not seen in-game since the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.
Called the Spirit of Competition (via WoWhead), the event sees players across the Horde and Alliance competing in the game’s PvP Battlegrounds to earn special rewards in the form of a unique tabard that mimics the Olympic Rings symbol as well as a unique dragon pet.
Conceived to coincide with the 2008 Summer Olympic games in the original version of the Burning Crusade expansion, it seemed Blizzard thought it would be fitting to bring it back for this year’s delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. It’s currently unclear how long the Spirit of Competition event will run. The Spirit of Competition event coincides with this year’s annual Midsummer Fire Festival in-game event, which adds new quests, cosmetic rewards, and dungeon bosses.
Horde players will likely want to take advantage of this week’s ongoing same-faction Battleground test in order to score the exclusive Olympic-themed cosmetic items. Prior to Blizzard enabling same-faction Battleground matchmaking, Horde players found themselves waiting up to an hour to participate in matches thanks to the faction’s much larger population, which would make earning the exclusive rewards far more difficult. The game’s most recent same-faction matchmaking test offers extra rewards for Alliance players who choose to participate in Battlegrounds.
The launch of the event comes just as Activision Blizzard is dealing with the fallout from a new California lawsuit against the company, stating it fosters a “frat boy” culture rife with sexual harassment. Many players are calling for the removal of NPCs in both WoW Classic and the current Shadowlands version of the game that are named after an ex-Blizzard veteran and former WoW creative director mentioned in the lawsuit.
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