Blizzard's third version of WoW, built on the original two continents with a level 60 cap, rebuilt talent trees, no realms, nine new dungeons, over a thousand new quests, and a promise of no gear resets. Included with a normal subscription. Launches November 4.
Revealed as a permanent third version of WoW alongside retail and Classic.
BlizzardAccess is in the Skyborne Epic Pack and the Warcraft Forever Collection, or a free opt-in lottery. Cap rose to 30 with the October 1 build. Extended past the stress test; closes for good at 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 23.
BlizzardAired; the beta opened as it ended. GDKP banned, modern addon API, 10 and 20 player raids every tier plus Onyxia at 40, single difficulty, no rated PvP, Oceanic on Australian servers.
BlizzardMaintenance on the morning of October 1 PDT, then a new build with the cap at 30. It stays at 30 for the rest of the beta.
Blizzard2:00 to 6:00 p.m. PDT in the Americas and Oceania, 19:00 to 03:00 CEST in Europe. Any WoW account, no subscription needed, on launch hardware. Every character is wiped afterwards, then the beta reopens until 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 23. Moved from October 19 on October 16.
BlizzardOpens October 27 at 18:00 CET in Europe and 1:00 p.m. PDT in North America (October 28, 07:00, in Korea and Taiwan). Pack owners only. Three characters per account across all rulesets, first come first served. Names are first and last, unique per region.
BlizzardIncluded with a standard subscription. Level cap 60, no realms. Four rulesets at launch (Normal, PvP, Roleplaying, Roleplay-PvP), with Hardcore after launch.
BlizzardThe Barrow Deeps (10 players, 8 bosses), Hyjal Summit (20 players, 13 bosses) and Onyxia's Lair (40 players, Drakefire Amulet attunement). All reset weekly.
BlizzardA sealed permadeath world. Nothing carries in; dead characters can transfer out.
ReportedTwo new raids, two new dungeons, new zone content, a legendary questline, PvP season refresh.
RoadmapA revamped iconic vanilla raid, one more new raid, two dungeons, professions and Legacy updates.
RoadmapAll 27 trees from the BlizzCon demo, 470 talents, with new, reworked and removed talents marked against Classic 1.12 and a shareable link for every build. Pick a class, then check every racial for every race before you commit.
The pillar guide to World of Warcraft: Forever. Realmless rulesets, a fixed level 60, rebuilt talent trees, merged hit and crit, the Legacy system, nine new dungeons, and what Blizzard left alone.
The last WoW Forever podcast before launch was the tech episode. Blizzard's engineers said the zone-border vanishing from the beta is fixed for November 4, that group invites will no longer move you without asking, that Oceanic servers could run on Australian time if players accept a sudden sky change when grouping with Americans, and that bigger-than-40 groups are being discussed. What was said, who said it, and what is still open.
Principal game designer Kris Zierhut told IGN that WoW Forever is aiming for a major content update roughly every four months, about three a year, with smaller unlocks in between. Why Season of Discovery's pace was ruled out, what the roadmap says the first two waves contain, the Northrend idea that was floated, and what is still unconfirmed.
WoW Forever's Early Name Reservation opened on October 27 with a two and a half hour delay in Europe, an hour of queues and disconnects in North America, a restricted-name bug that blocked anything containing "con", an Oceanic Roleplay bug and Horde creation throttled on the PvP ruleset. What Blizzard has confirmed, what players reported, and what to do with the slots you have left.
Blizzard posted a final racial tuning pass on October 26, the night before name reservation and with the beta already closed. Every change for Human, Dwarf, Tauren, Orc and Skyborne, why Blizzard says it made them, what the 300-post reaction thread is angry about, and what it means for the race you reserve today.
Blizzard published Unbowed on October 26, a Sean Copeland short story about Cormack, a Scarlet Crusader raised as Forsaken who asks whether a dead man can still serve the Light. What happens in it, who made it, how it answers the Undead Paladin lore argument, and where to read or watch it for free.
Three hunter threads have taken over the Forever forums since the beta closed: a sim update that has Survival Hunter 19% ahead of every other spec, a 283-post complaint that the ranged rotation is mostly waiting, and a push to remove the dead zone. What is confirmed, what is a level 63 simulation of talents nobody has played, what the Forever Open numbers say, and what Blizzard has said.
Blizzard's Beta Timewalking page at timewalking.blizzard.com gives every WoW Forever tester a personal recap: hours, characters, levels, quests, jumps, the mob that killed you most, and stranger stats, each with a percentile and a four-stat share card. How to get yours, what is left out, and how to read the numbers.
WoW Forever's day/night cycle is locked to realm time, 24 hours for 24 hours, on a single megaserver per region. Oceanic testers played the whole beta in the dark and evening players everywhere saw one sky. Twenty forum threads, a top Reddit post, the fixes players want, the case for leaving it alone, and Blizzard's silence so far.
Early Name Reservation for WoW Forever runs October 27 to November 3. Start times for every region, which packs qualify, how first and last names work, why your three slots are shared across rulesets, and the PvP faction lock to think about before you click Create.
A week after saying there were no plans for RP-PvP, Blizzard reversed course on October 22: WoW Forever will launch with a Roleplay-PvP ruleset on November 4, and Blizzard is trying to have it ready for name reservation on October 27. What Aggrend said, what isn't confirmed yet, and the faction-lock debate that started within hours.
The WoW Forever beta closes at 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 23 after a 24-hour farewell event in the starting zones. In the End of Beta podcast, Blizzard said why it ran a beta at all, why there's a two-week gap, how the language setting replaces language realms, that campfire damage is being looked at, and teased raid bosses, a revamped Molten Core and future homes.
Blizzard's October 21 Camping post explains how WoW Forever campfires work: a Cooking fire holds up to 3 profession-made camp features, you sit for 1 minute to get the buffs, and all features share a 1-hour cooldown. Every skill 20 camp feature and its buff, the Journeyman and Expert campfires, and the 140 and 300 skill upgrades found in Wowhead's Forever database.
Blizzard started emailing WoW Forever Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes on October 20. Each code gives one friend free WoW Forever access from November 4 to November 11 with no subscription, but no Skyborne, no beta and no name reservation. How many codes each pack includes, where to find codes that never arrived by email, and the open questions.
Blizzard's WoW Forever raid overview confirms three raids for December 9: the Barrow Deeps (10 players, 8 bosses), Hyjal Summit (20 players, 13 bosses) and a 40-player Onyxia's Lair that still needs the Drakefire Amulet. Where each raid is, the full Alliance and Horde attunement chains, why the new raids have no attunement, and why players are now asking for a 10-player version of every raid.
Blizzard's Paladin class deep dive explains every WoW Forever change: Holy Strike, Seal of Fury, baseline Consecration, Holy Shock at 21 points, Templar's Bulwark, Sacred Arbiter and the Twist of Light capstone. Why Retribution players are split on seal twisting, what the developers said on the podcast, and where Champion of the Light ended up.
Two days before the beta ends, layering is back at the top of the WoW Forever forums. What triggers a layer change, how players use zone borders and group invites to escape world PvP, the October 15 combat fix, what the developers have promised, and how Classic handled the same problem in 2019.
A forum thread asking Blizzard to cut Polymorph, Sap and Fear in PvP passed 1,000 posts, and an all-Warlock Forever Open final put Fear back at the center of it. The real durations at level 30, what Blizzard has and hasn't changed, what players are proposing, and the case for leaving it alone.
Warlockguy, the 20th seed and former League of Legends pro Nien, won The Forever Open by beating fellow Undead Warlock Neepzen 3–1 in the grand final. The standings for all 36 finalists, the nine $5,555 class prizes, the Demonology build both finalists used, the upsets, the weekend's disputes, and what 4,500 qualifier duels say about class balance at level 30.
A paid leveling guide addon was advertised during the Forever Open broadcast, and two Blizzard forum threads passed 880 posts arguing over whether it breaks the add-on policy. What Journey and RestedXP actually sell, what Blizzard's policy says word for word, and why Blizzard hasn't answered.
Cat Form is a level 20 class quest in WoW Forever, not a trainer spell. The full chain for Night Elf, Tauren and Skyborne druids, where the three relics are in the Stormrage Barrow Den, and the October 16 hotfix that made the Relic of the Fang lootable again.
On the October 15 WoW Forever Podcast, Aggrend said there are no plans for an RP-PvP ruleset, no protection for low-level players being camped, and no arenas or rated battlegrounds any time soon. Premades will face premades, and Alterac Valley honor is coming down. What was said, why, and why the RP-PvP threads have passed 6,000 posts.
The October 15 WoW Forever beta build contained a Spectral Wolf Pack, Crimson Rooster, Verdant Sea Turtle, three pets, a tent toy and two transmog ensembles that look a lot like retail shop items. Blizzard says they are not meant for Forever. What was found, what Blizzard said, and what it does and doesn't tell you about a cash shop.
The October 15 WoW Forever beta build deleted the weapon specialization racials and replaced them with flat crit and crit damage, slowed Blood Fury, put a 25 second cooldown on Touch of the Grave and buffed Troll, Skyborne and Gnome. Every change, what it means for your race pick, and why the forums lit up overnight.
The last big WoW Forever beta build before launch redesigned Arcane Blast, added Frost Blast to replace rank 1 Frostbolt, made wands and Auto Shot require 0.5 seconds standing still, turned totems and auras raid wide, rebuilt the Elemental Shaman tree and reshaped Shadow Priest. Every class change and what testers think of them.
Clay Stone says 'horizontal' means expanding the world, not freezing gear. Each new raid tier will be a small power step up, old best-in-slot items should last a long time, and three forum threads passed 80 replies in a day arguing about it. Here is exactly what was said and what it means for your gear.
Holly Longdale and Clay Stone did a run of interviews at PAX Australia from October 9 to 11. Cross-region play is out 'right now', the character cap isn't decided, endgame gold should be easier to earn, PvP gets reward periods between raid tiers, and some Forever features could reach retail. Everything they said, checked against the videos.
The WoW Forever Stress Test ran on October 21 on launch hardware. Most players got in with no queue and reported smooth play, Australians confirmed local servers with single-digit ping, and the complaints were layering, an English-less language picker in Europe, flickering shadows and a slow first hour in Europe. The beta came back afterwards and closes for good at 10 a.m. PDT on Friday, October 23. Start and end times, what broke, and what Blizzard has said.
Blizzard's new anti-RMT tool freezes trade, mail, guild banks and the Auction House on accounts suspected of buying or selling gold while it investigates. What Kaivax's October 13 post says, how a hold ends, the false positive question, the 3,700 closed beta accounts, and why the forums are split.
TechRadar ran a six-part interview with the WoW Forever team between October 7 and 12. The parts players are arguing about: no races from WoW's expansions, no summoning stones, respecs that get expensive fast, weekly balance changes for six months, and a frank admission that Season of Discovery went 'too far'.
Xaryu called mages 'cracked' the night the October 8 build landed, and a 'Nerf mages already' thread passed 400 replies in a day. What Frost mages are actually doing at level 30, why the free Legacy points matter, what the mage players say back, and why it all lands right before the $100,000 Forever Open.
The October 8 WoW Forever beta build raised dungeon kill XP by about 20% and stopped the highest-level party member from dragging everyone's XP down. Josh Greenfield says dungeon leveling is now 'very close, if not equal' to optimal questing. Testers posting their own numbers say it isn't close. Here is both sides.
The level 30 cap put Penance in Discipline Priests' hands, and a 'Penance must go' thread hit 190 replies in a day. What Penance actually does at 30, why paladins' 20-minute Lay on Hands and the crocolisk's Dismember are in the same argument, and what the defenders say.
The October 1 WoW Forever beta build halved the bonus XP on dungeon quests, after mob XP inside dungeons had already been cut. The exact patch note, the real numbers from Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep, the backlash, and the players defending the change.
The October 1 WoW Forever beta build raised the cap to 30, gave Warriors 100% more rage on crits, rebuilt the Fury tree, made respecs 1 silver, nerfed Gnome Eureka again and locked Tauren Cultivation behind player level. Plus the 16 Legacy point grant, what the devs said on the class podcast, and the rough launch night.
Kaivax's October 1 post says Blizzard has been actioning gold botters, buyers and anyone who knowingly received illicit gold in the WoW Forever beta, and that a warning will pop up when you trade with strangers. What the post says, the warning text, the Payo and Supatease reports, and why the forums still are not happy.
Asmongold's Olympus grew past 30,000 members across 30+ guilds in the WoW Forever beta. Then an addon to mute all of them passed 34,000 downloads. What the addon does, what Asmongold said, both sides of the forum fight, and Blizzard's silence.
Blizzard's first WoW Forever class deep dives cover Hunter, Druid, Priest and Warrior. Dual spec at level 40, crits giving Warriors 75% more rage, Tiger's Fury swapped for Shifting Power, Penance and Wild Growth, and how players took it.
Streamer Ziqo was traded hundreds of gold by level 1 characters on the WoW Forever beta, and Blizzard removed it from his mage, leaving him with 9 silver. No ban. The trades, Blizzard's new stance on gold buyers, the fake "account closed" clip, and why the forum thread is past 1,400 posts.
The Make-A-Wish quest Ezra Chatterton helped design in 2007 was missing from the WoW Forever beta because it arrived in TBC. Kaivax says Blizzard is "working on it." What the quest is, why it was left out, and what players want next.
WoW Forever lead designer Tim Jones told Windows Central he would "love some day" to bring Player Housing into the Classic world. It isn't announced and isn't in the launch plan, but the forum thread about it is the biggest beta argument this week. The quote, both sides, and what is actually confirmed.
WoW Forever gives Warriors rage by weapon speed instead of damage. Blizzard now says crits will give 75% more rage again and armor will stop cutting rage from hits. How it works, the Ahlaundoh video that blew it up, Xaryu and Pikaboo's takes, the 600-post forum thread, the players who like it, and what to expect from Blizzard's class design podcast.
In the WoW Forever beta every skinner in a group can skin the same corpse, and testers say 30 to 40 player skinning raids are already farming leather. How it works, where it came from on retail, what both sides argue, and what Blizzard has (not) said.
Blizzard removed the fog off switch in the September 24 WoW Forever beta build, then added heavier weather. Why the volumefog command no longer works, the eye strain complaints, the settings testers say reduce the fog, and what Blizzard has said.
Everything on The Forever Open, the WoW Forever beta dueling tournament run by Tips Out and hosted by Esfand and Xaryu. How TimTheTatman doubled the prize pool to $100,000, the confirmed prize split, the new Swiss qualifier and double-elimination finals format, the full ban list, and the rows over gold and streamer balance.
Blizzard said the WoW Forever beta would open after the September 17 Q&A. An hour later it has not. Here is what is happening, what the launcher shows, what people are reporting, and what to do while you wait. Live updates.
The WoW Forever beta client leaks memory. Frame rate slides from 120 to 30 over an hour, VRAM climbs until it spills, and logging out to character select resets it. The measured leak rates, every affected platform, what Blizzard has and has not said, and the workarounds ranked.
Everything Blizzard changed in the WoW Forever beta between September 21 and 23: client build 1.60.1.69977 with Mac and gamepad fixes, the second attempt at the A Firm Response quest, the realm restart that freed stuck characters, and the EU routing fix. Plus what testers found after the build, and what is not in any notes.
Merchant's Favor is WoW Forever's new profession currency. You earn it by filling Waylaid Crates with gathered and crafted goods and handing them in at Three Corners or the Crossroads. Every crate type, the turn-in NPCs, how much Favor you get, the 300-plus recipes it buys, and what beta testers think of the drop rate.
Blizzard's September 23 Legacy deep dive in plain terms. How Legacy Points are earned, why one character can reach 29 of them without an alt, all 21 perks across the Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness trees with their demo ranks, the Spectral Bear rewards, the Hardcore rules, and the 16 points we would spend first.
Josh Greenfield says shared mob tagging is something Blizzard 'simply must hold the line on' in WoW Forever. Why testers asked for it, what the beta's starting zones look like with layering and a realmless megaserver, what Blizzard says it will do instead, and how to level through the crowd right now. Updated October 5 with why testers now say grouping slows them down.
How the WoW Forever library book quest works, where all 40 books are with coordinates, which ones you can get at level 20, the neck and ring rewards for 10 and 20 books, and the Mage-only Research profession. With a checklist you can tick off as you go.
The items and systems WoW Forever beta testers found that Blizzard never announced. Rockslicer's 30-charge mining effect, the Coldflame Saber for melee Mages, the new Embrace of the Viper set bonuses, the Cozy Sleeping Bag, the library book rewards, guaranteed dungeon blues, mailed loot, a doubled bank and more, with exact tooltip numbers from Wowhead's Forever database.
One week of WoW Forever beta class feedback, sorted by class. The Auto Shot and wand bug Blizzard confirmed on September 23, the 155-reply Warrior thread, the Twist of Light argument, Druid Wrath ranks, the Lava Burst capstone, the Warlock Fear range cut, and what none of it tells you yet at level 20.
Blizzard world builder Matthew Armstrong says he is making WoW Forever for Classic players and lapsed accounts, not retail players, and the beta forum is 338 replies deep in arguing about it. Here is what he said, what the leads told Windows Central and Shacknews the same week (27 viable trees, 10 and 20 player raids every patch, a level 27 to 32 zone, maybe housing), and the weather update Blizzard teased.
Launch November 4 at 3 p.m. Pacific, beta from September 17 (expected live after the 10:30 a.m. PT Q&A), three paid packs, a $30 race, and a roadmap through summer 2027. Every date and price Blizzard confirmed.
All 27 WoW Forever talent trees compared to Classic 1.12: the 14 new capstones, the new spells, the 81 talents that got cut, and what it means for how each class plays.
Where the 1,000 new quests live. Four new zones, nine new dungeons with level ranges, the December raid wave, the Darkspear Islands battleground, and who the Skyborne elves actually are.
One class had all three of its 31-point talents rebuilt, had its mana problem fixed five different ways, and gears every role off a single stat. Roll a Horde Orc Shaman on November 4.
Blizzard confirmed on September 30 that Dual Specialization unlocks at level 40 in World of Warcraft: Forever. What is confirmed, what is still unknown, and how respeccing works.
The Classic debuff cap decided which specs raided. Blizzard has said nothing about it for Forever. Here is why it is the second-biggest open question, and what the rebuilt trees imply.
Nora Mills confirmed at the September 17 Q&A that Forever uses the modern (Midnight) addon API, with a built-in damage meter, cooldown manager and a swing timer coming. What still works, what does not, and why.
There is no official WoW Forever system requirements page. The Battle.net shop lists 128 GB of SSD space and 8 GB of VRAM. Everything more precise than that is unsourced.
People are searching for a WoW Forever server list that will never exist. Forever is realmless: you pick a ruleset, and a matchmaking system called Familiar Faces keeps you near the people you know.
Can you move a Classic Era or Anniversary character to WoW Forever? Not announced. The only transfer that exists is out of Hardcore on death. Every confirmed rule, and the gaps.
Senior designer Josh Greenfield says you will not see an item's stats until it drops for someone. No pre-raid BiS lists, no datamined loot tables. What that does to raid prep, and to the sites that live on it.
Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock and Undead Paladin. What each combo actually gets from its racials, which ones are upgrades, and which are just new.
The $29.99 Heroic Pack does not include the beta. The $59.99 Epic Pack does. What each of the three packs and the physical Collector's Edition actually grants, when, and what carries to Modern WoW or Classic.
Dungeon mob XP is 'way down' and dungeon quest XP is 'much, much, much higher' in WoW Forever. What the devs said, what the numbers might be, and why the biggest gameplay argument of the week is about tanks.
Bloodthirst 45% to 35% AP. Stormstrike 20 seconds to 8. Lightning Bolt 3.0 to 2.5. Edgemaster's +7 to +1. The base-spell and item changes hiding under the talent rework, with sources.
Every answer from the September 17 WoW Forever developer Q&A with Josh Greenfield, Nora Mills and Tim Jones: GDKP, addons, raid sizes, single difficulty, Oceanic servers, surnames, PvP, transmog, the Skyborne, and what they skipped.
Josh Greenfield confirmed at the September 17 Q&A that gold-bid raids are not allowed in World of Warcraft: Forever. Why, how the economy will be managed instead, the return of Tarnished Undermine Real, and the warning to gold buyers.
Forever leveling and endgame guides land as the beta gives us something to test. Until then each class has its rebuilt trees, its demo spellbook, a tier on the buff list, and our Classic Era guide.
PaladinClassic: Alliance onlyHoly · Protection · Retribution52 talents, 20 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →S
HunterBeast Mastery · Marksmanship · Survival50 talents, 14 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →B
RogueAssassination · Combat · Subtlety53 talents, 9 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →C
ShamanClassic: Horde onlyElemental · Enhancement · Restoration50 talents, 12 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →S
WarlockAffliction · Demonology · Destruction52 talents, 19 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →A
DruidBalance · Feral Combat · Restoration51 talents, 14 new →Level 38 spellbook →Beta BiS →Classic guide →AWe published a ten-part Classic+ collection five days before BlizzCon: what the community wanted, what the evidence said, and what a permanent Azeroth would need. It stays up as the record.
Dates and features come from Blizzard's own recaps and pre-purchase page. Level ranges, talent counts and anything labelled "reported" comes from press and community trackers who played the demo. Talent data is from talentsforever.com (CC BY 4.0). We updated after the September 17 Q&A and update after each beta build.
Save builds, publish them under any name, and upvote the ones that hold up. No account needed. Browse published builds →
Every spell on the level 38 demo characters, tab by tab, with tooltips read off the footage. All nine spellbooks →
Over 600 new recipes, a passive bonus for training each profession, and campfires that hold crafted objects with hour-long buffs. Every profession bonus, camp object and Legacy perk → Leveling guides for all twelve, 1-300 →
Best in slot for every spec at the level 30 cap, with the level 20 lists kept below, checked against Wowhead's Forever database, with a character sheet you can dress on any race and open in 3D. BiS gear for all nine classes → Every library book, for the free neck and ring →
Every race now has two actives and two passives, the Skyborne come in two flavours, and six new race and class combos are in. All the racials, with Wowhead tooltips → Can't decide? Spin for a class, race and faction →
The Classic Era class guides cover the 1.12 trees Forever replaces, and the realm population census tracks where people are now.
