Alterworld opens the public test of Ashbound, a Cataclysm realm that starts in Vanilla

Alterworld - Ashbound opened its public test realm on 6 March 2026 at 20:00 CET (19:00 UTC). The test runs on the Cataclysm 4.3.4 client with Vanilla 1.12.1 content and a level cap of 60.

A progressive realm after all

The first announcement, on 22 February, called Ashbound a static Cataclysm realm. On 1 March the team corrected that. Ashbound starts with Vanilla content, moves through The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm, and then stays on 4.3.4 for good.

The team is two people, so it split the test into "semesters" in the same order: Vanilla, TBC 2.4.3, WotLK 3.3.5a and Cataclysm 4.3.4. It wrote that this gives it time to fix bugs and keeps thousands of reports from arriving at once.

Ashbound is an international PvE realm. Experience, exploration and quest rates are 2x, the other rates 1x, and capacity is 500 players.

Where it stands in October

The February post planned the official launch for the second quarter of 2026. That target has passed, and the homepage still shows "Cataclysm release 2026 Q2" with no new date. On 4 October the test realm’s status showed TBC 2.4.3 content, so the test seems to have reached its second semester, but no post announced it. Staff last closed a report on the bug tracker on 11 September, and the site hasn’t published news since 1 March.

Source: Alterworld news (22 February and 1 March 2026), its homepage, realm page and bug tracker (4 October 2026).