Today Blizzard announced a new partnership with Random House for a series of novels about the Warcraft and Starcraft universes. All well and good, and something that I’m looking forward to. But what really peaked my interested was the announcement that the first novel, World of Warcraft: Illidan is (obviously) about Illidan, and is due to be released in March 2016. Is this a clue about the release date of Legion?

There have been novels tied to new expansions in the past – Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War tied in to the beginnings of the Mists of Pandaria expansion, and War Crimes connected MoP with Warlords of Draenor. Both novels were released prior to the launch of the expansion they were connected to. Tides of War was released late August 2012, with MoP being released the next month. War Crimes had a larger gap, being published in May 2014, with Warlords of Draenor released in November of the same year. However, both played a big part in giving additional context to the next expansion, so it does make me wonder if Illidan will play the same role.

The timing may fit reasonably well, assuming that beta will be announced no later than Blizzcon. The beta for MoP lasted 6 months, and for Warlords it lasted 5. If this trend follows and we assume beta opens in November, that gives an April/May release date for Legion, with the novel Illidan coming out 1-2 months before that. Pretty tidy timing.

The question is, is April/May too far away?