The brood queen herself is back, so sayeth the Blizzard!

To celebrate World of Warcraft’s 5th anniversary, Blizzard has completely updated and re-worked the Onyxia dungeon and encounter for 10 and 25-man groups, complete with the same gear just updated for level 80 raiders, and tweaked to present a challenge to endgamers now! The announcement was made last night by Zarhym on the official WoW forums:

She has lurked in her lair and done battle with the many brave adventurers who travelled to that familiar location over the years. Now, in honor of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary, the dreaded brood mother Onyxia is being revamped to make a return to the forefront of Azeroth, as part of our big plans for the upcoming 3.2.2 content patch.

This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into 10- and 25-player modes. We will be adding new items to Onyxia’s loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content. There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called Brood of Onyxia. We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

We’re very excited to bring this classic encounter back to provide a fun new experience for both new and veteran players. Further details will be available in the near future, and we will be setting up the Public Test Realms soon to help test out this fight along with all the new content we have planned for the patch. Keep an eye on the forums for updates!

Happy 5th, World of Warcraft! I can’t think of a more fitting way for Blizzard to celebrate the event with us – I for one look forward to taking Onyxia’s head. Again.