Summary
- Some World of Warcraft fans have noticed a backwards day and night cycle since the most recent weekly reset.
- The cycle is tied to each realm's time, but recently players have found a starlit Azeroth during the day and the sun up all night.
- It is speculated that this may be a glitch or a deeper clue for upcoming patches, but WoW has yet to address the phenomenon.
World of Warcraft fans have noticed the in-game day and night cycle seems to be backwards since the most recent weekly reset. In many World of Warcraft realms, players have inexplicably found a starlit Azeroth during the day, but with the sun up all night long.
The cycle of day and night in World of Warcraft is tied to each realm’s particular time. This means that as long as the server a player is on has a realm time similar to their own, the game world reflects their actual time of day, with the sun rising and setting over the course of a real-life 24-hour period.
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However, ever since the weekly reset on Tuesday, February 13, players have noticed the day/night cycle seems to be messed up. Many fans have reported World of Warcraft was dark, even though the realm time indicated it was the middle of the day, and vice versa. Tyrsenus, a World of Warcraft player, was one such fan, who shared their discovery on the WoW subreddit. Their screenshot showed a region in the Spires of Arak, located on Alternate Draenor, proving it was not just the Classic World of Warcraft continents that were affected. The comments on Tyrsenus' post corroborated the inconsistency across multiple realms and regions.
WoW’s Day/Night Cycle Seems to be Backwards
Fans aren’t sure what to think about this strange occurrence. Most assume it is a simple glitch from the small hotfix applied during the brief maintenance period that accompanied the reset. Most of these incidents seem to be from NA players, so it is possible the day/night cycles on these realms were accidentally synced with their EU counterparts, who are currently reeling over a policy change regarding WoW tokens.
That said, others wonder if there is a deeper meaning behind the backward day/night cycle. Some have wondered if it could be a clue as to the mysterious World of Warcraft pirate patch, specifically in reference to the Nightsquall pirate ship teased in Dragonflight. Others half-joked that it was some sort of foreshadowing for Midnight, the second expansion in the Worldsoul Saga. World of Warcraft has yet to address the phenomenon, so fans shouldn’t get their hopes up about a deeper meaning until it does.
The reversed day/night cycle does not seem to be affecting World of Warcraft Classic, but fans of the retro servers have strange skies of their own to deal with. Every three hours, the Blood Moon event takes place in WoW Classic Season of Discovery, transforming Stranglethorn Vale into a free-for-all PvP zone. The retail day/night cycle will probably be fixed soon, but Season of Discovery’s celestial phenomenon is here to stay.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
- Released
- November 28, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the ninth expansion pack for the iconic massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.
Dragonflight features an overhauled user interface, raises the level cap to 70, and introduces a new race and class.
- Developer(s)
- Blizzard, Activision
- Publisher(s)
- Blizzard, Activision
- Franchise
- Warcraft
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
