WoW's Mists Of Pandaria Out 25th September

World Of Warcraft's surelyitreallycan'tbereal update, Mists Of Pandaria - the April Fool's joke writ large - has a release date at long last. It'll be in the shops (shops?) on the 25th September. It's going to cost a bloody enormous £30 in a box, but of course the digital version, not requiring a significant cut go to the store, price of packaging, shipping, etc, will be... wait, £30. Er. There is of course a Collector's Edition at twice the price, and a Digital Deluxe containing the non-physical bonuses for £40. And you can now pre-order.

Perhaps what makes this expansion most interesting is that it can't be built on any pre-established lore or long-planned intent, since the entire thing is based on a joke made a couple of years ago. Also, pandas.

Bizarrely, the further information on the digital deluxe version is displaying a 404 at the time of writing, but presumably you'll be able to find out the goodies here in a bit. However, I can tell you that alongside the game you'll get the Imperial Quilen flying mount, a Lucky Quilen Cub for a pet, StarCraft II Battle.net portraits (weeee), and a Diablo III banner sigil and accent. Huh.

The store-bought box will have an hours-long behind-the-scenes DVD documentary, a soundtrack CD (I cannot think of the last time I used a CD), the obligatory art book, and in a shock collector's edition move, a mousemat. For £30 extra. Oh boy.

So, less than two months to go before we can see just how much this latest expansion can turn around the MMO's slow decline, especially in the face of the oncoming Guild Wars 2.