Blizzard is providing free game time to NA players following downtime during the launch of the pre-expansion update for WoW The War Within.

The launch of the World of Warcraft The War Within pre-patch hasn’t gone quite as smoothly as Blizzard might have hoped. Despite running a beta that began in early June, the launch of the WoW The War Within pre-patch on Tuesday July 23 has run into several issues. Chief among those was a period of extended downtime at launch, which primarily affected players in North American realms.

As such, Blizzard is handing out some free game time to compensate for the trouble. “We wanted to take a moment to recognize that the first day of the pre-expansion content update for The War Within resulted in extended downtime for many players in North American realms,” the World of Warcraft maker writes in a post to the game’s official website.

Given the inherent always-online nature of MMORPGs, there’s no workaround to play when servers are down, which can be particularly galling if you’ve set aside time specifically to dive into a new update. “In recognition of this, we’re adding one day of extra game time to every subscription in North America, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand for accounts which were active as of July 23, 2024,” Blizzard states. “We anticipate providing this compensation to affected players on or before August 15, 2024.” If you’re unsure whether it’s gone through, you can check your current game time via the account page on Battlenet.