World of Warcraft Celebrates 21 Years with XP Buffs, BRD Timewalking, and New Loyal Watchman Transmog
World of Warcraft has stepped into its 21st year with a full-scale in-game celebration, bringing back fan-favorite activities from previous anniversaries and layering them with new cosmetics and titles. The anniversary event is live for a limited time, giving players a chance to grind out rewards, enjoy boosted progression, and revisit iconic content in a refreshed way.
At the center of the celebration is the Bronze Celebration venue in Tanaris, just outside the Caverns of Time. This gathering point acts as the hub for most of the anniversary content, offering a mix of raids, mini-games, special quests, and vendors that trade in event-specific currencies. Whether you’re a returning veteran or a new player looking to jump into the party, the 21st Anniversary has a clear message: log in, level up, and collect as many rewards as you can before the festivities end.
Anniversary XP and Reputation Buff: Level and Grind Faster
One of the most important bonuses during the 21st Anniversary is the global progression boost. All players receive a 10% increase to both experience and reputation gains just by participating in the event. For anyone leveling alts, grinding reputation for mounts or transmog, or catching up on older factions, this alone makes the event worth logging in for.
That baseline 10% boost can be pushed even further. By completing the Celebrate Good Fun! daily quest from Yllana at the Bronze Celebration venue, players can crank the buff up to 20%. The quest is simple and repeatable, so staying consistent throughout the event turns the anniversary into an efficient window for progression. It’s especially tempting for players juggling multiple characters: every bit of extra XP and reputation saves you time in the long run.
Activities: World Bosses, Korrak’s Revenge, and Blackrock Depths Timewalking
The 21st Anniversary doesn’t rely on just one type of content. Instead, it pulls together different styles of gameplay so pretty much every kind of player has something to do.
Some of the main anniversary activities include:
Anniversary World Bosses – Classic threats return as powerful world bosses, giving players a nostalgic challenge and the chance at themed rewards. These encounters are a quick way to jump into group content without committing to a full raid night.
Korrak’s Revenge – The anniversary version of the Alterac Valley battleground comes back once again, combining PvP chaos with a heavy dose of nostalgia. It’s a good place to farm honor, practice large-scale fights, and pick up some themed rewards.
Blackrock Depths Timewalking Raid – A reimagined version of the iconic Classic dungeon, Blackrock Depths returns in raid form through Timewalking. For the 21st Anniversary, the LFR difficulty of this raid is available, allowing players to queue up and tackle it through the group finder system. It keeps the flavor of old-school Blackrock Depths while fitting into modern raid expectations.
Venue Mini-Games – At the Bronze Celebration venue, several mini-events rotate through, including activities like Mount Mania and Fashion Frenzy. These bite-sized challenges are designed to be quick, fun, and rewarding, letting you break up heavier content with something more relaxed.
Guest Relations and Secret-Finding Quests – The Guest Relations area provides a set of discovery-focused objectives. These quests tap into the community’s love of puzzles and secrets, rewarding players who like digging around for hidden objectives and subtle hints.
Chromie’s Codex Scenario – Players can also engage with Chromie’s Codex, a scenario-style activity that taps into the franchise’s time-bending themes. It’s another way for the event to tie into the Caverns of Time and the Bronze Dragonflight’s obsession with the timeline.
By rotating between these different activities, players can avoid burnout while still making steady progress toward rewards.
Rewards: Loyal Watchman Transmog and Khaz Algar Enthusiast Title Lead the Pack
A World of Warcraft anniversary event lives or dies on its rewards, and the 21st Anniversary delivers a mix of returning favorites and brand-new cosmetics.
Many of the revamped Tier 2 armor sets from a previous anniversary are available again, giving players a second chance to grab iconic transmog looks inspired by the game’s older raid tiers. On top of that, various PvP-themed weapons and armor, as well as more recent anniversary cosmetics, are back in the rotation.
The headline addition this year is the Loyal Watchman transmog ensemble, a new set that instantly stands out among the available cosmetics. It’s designed to feel like a prestige reward for players who commit to farming the event currency. Alongside it, there’s also a fresh title: Khaz Algar Enthusiast, aimed at players who want to show off their excitement for the game’s latest storyline direction.
These new pieces come with specific costs:
Loyal Watchman transmog ensemble – 230 Timewarped Badges
Khaz Algar Enthusiast title – 100 Timewarped Badges
Both rewards sit on the pricier side of the vendor’s offerings, which is intentional. You’ll need to take advantage of multiple activities, especially Timewalking and anniversary events, to earn enough currency if you want to walk away with everything.
In addition to these, a collection of recent anniversary rewards returns, along with several Enthusiast titles tied to different themes and locations. If you missed something over the last few years, this event gives you another shot—though not everything has come back.
Bronze Celebration Tokens and Timewarped Badges: How the Currencies Work
Two key currencies drive the 21st Anniversary reward system: Bronze Celebration Tokens and Timewarped Badges.
Bronze Celebration Tokens are given through event-specific activities. They’re tied tightly to the anniversary itself and used primarily for cosmetics, toys, and other themed items at the Bronze Celebration venue. There is an account-wide weekly cap on how many Bronze Celebration Tokens you can earn, which is an important detail: you don’t need to grind the event on every character. Once your account hits the limit, you’re done for that week.
Timewarped Badges are a more familiar currency that many players have been collecting for years via Timewalking dungeons and events. During the 21st Anniversary, they remain a core way to buy long-term rewards, including the new Loyal Watchman ensemble and Khaz Algar Enthusiast title. Since Timewarped Badges carry over beyond the event, they’re a steady investment currency for repeat Timewalking participants.
The combination of a capped event currency and an evergreen one strikes a balance: you have strong reasons to log in during the anniversary, but your past Timewalking effort still pays off.
What’s Missing from Last Year’s Anniversary
Not everything from the 20th Anniversary has made a comeback. Some of the most nostalgic rewards and systems are conspicuously absent this time around.
A couple of notable omissions include:
Legacy anniversary rewards like Obsidian Worldbreaker, Lil’ Nefarian, and the Baby Blizzard Bear are not available from the current vendors. These items have always carried a sense of prestige, and it looks like they’re being kept rare, potentially reserved for major milestone events in the future.
Some anniversary vendors that previously offered older rewards are gone from the Bronze Celebration venue. Storekeeper-style NPCs that once sold hard-to-find cosmetics are no longer present, which limits the pool of legacy items players can purchase this year.
For Blackrock Depths, only the LFR version of the Timewalking raid appears to be active at the moment. The Normal and Heroic difficulties, plus related vendors like the Timewarped Relic Coffer Key sellers, are not currently visible. It’s unclear if this is a permanent decision for the event or something that might change after a reset.
These absences will definitely disappoint players who were hoping to finish old collections or grab iconic mounts and pets they missed in prior years. At the same time, it reinforces the idea that some rewards really are tied to specific windows in the game’s history.
Mists of Pandaria Classic and the Joyous Journeys XP Boost
While the main retail game celebrates with the Bronze Celebration, World of Warcraft Classic also has something on the table. The focus there is Mists of Pandaria Classic, where the Joyous Journeys buff gives characters a massive 50% experience boost up to level 90 for a limited time.
This is a prime opportunity for Classic players to:
Finish leveling characters they left behind.
Prepare alts for upcoming content.
Push new classes or roles to endgame in time for the next phase.
The buff is enabled automatically, so you don’t need to pick it up from an NPC. If you actually prefer a slower leveling pace or want to savor each level, you can disable Joyous Journeys by speaking to an innkeeper in major capitals or in Dalaran. That flexibility lets players choose whether they want to speed through the content or enjoy it at a more old-school pace.
With phase 3, The Thunder King, expected to arrive shortly after the anniversary window, the timing of Joyous Journeys is deliberate. It gives the Classic community a natural ramp into the next raid tier and keeps the game’s progression feeling active even while the retail side is celebrating a different milestone.
A Packed Anniversary for Both New and Returning Players
Taken as a whole, World of Warcraft’s 21st Anniversary is a dense, reward-packed event. On the retail side, the XP and reputation buffs, the Blackrock Depths Timewalking raid, returning anniversary bosses, Korrak’s Revenge, and a variety of mini-games all feed into a loop of currency, cosmetics, and titles. The new Loyal Watchman transmog ensemble and Khaz Algar Enthusiast title give collectors something fresh to chase, while the return of revamped Tier 2 sets and other recent rewards keeps the vendor lists appealing.
On the Classic side, Joyous Journeys turns leveling into a fast track, lining up neatly with the next wave of content. Whether you’re invested in modern WoW, Mists of Pandaria Classic, or both, the anniversary gives you clear reasons to log in regularly.
Some players will be disappointed by the absence of specific legacy rewards and vendors, and others will wish that Normal and Heroic Blackrock Depths were active from day one. Even so, the overall structure of the event makes it easy to jump in, progress quickly, and walk away with something meaningful.
If you care about transmog, titles, mounts, or just faster leveling, this 21st Anniversary is not the kind of event you want to ignore.