Who gets in, how to install it, why your "beta key" is not a key, what the level cap is, and what you can actually play. Updated through the beta as Blizzard fills in the gaps it left open.
The Skyborne Epic Pack ($59.99, €59.99, £51.99) and the Warcraft Forever Collection ($79.99, €79.99, £69.99) both list "Access to the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta starting on September 17" in Blizzard's pre-purchase post. Access is instant and tied to the WoW account you buy it on. Nothing says you cannot buy later in the beta, but Blizzard has not said you can either.
The beta opt-in on the WoW Forever site is a lottery. Invitations go out in waves, selection is random, and Blizzard has published no odds and no wave schedule. Opt in, then forget about it.
The $29.99 Skyborne Heroic Pack gets you the race, name reservation and cosmetics. No beta. This is the most common purchase mistake on the forums. If you bought Heroic and want in, the Epic upgrade is the only guaranteed route.
Not Classic, not a separate tile. Forever is a game version under the World of Warcraft entry.
It installs separately from your other WoW versions. Accounts with access show an install date of September 17, 2026; accounts without access show November 4, 2026. If you see November 4, your account does not have the beta.
Blizzard has not published a download size. The Battle.net shop's requirements block lists 128 GB of available SSD space and 8 GB of VRAM as the minimum. Community reports from people who pre-installed put the download at 60 GB or more depending on what WoW files you already have. Treat every precise figure you see elsewhere as unsourced.
The beta opened as the September 17 Q&A ended. Pick WoW Forever Beta from the version dropdown in the Battle.net app. If the login screen says the realm is down on launch night, it is not you.
People also pre-installed the client with a Battle.net command-line flag before the beta opened. It became the most-read thread on the Forever forum. Blizzard has acknowledged the behaviour in a bug thread without endorsing it; we are not reproducing the command here because it is unsupported and may stop working.
The beta is live. It opened on September 17, 2026 as the Forever developer Q&A ended, shortly after 11 a.m. Pacific (7 p.m. UK, 8 p.m. Central Europe), and runs until October 21.
Two ways. Buy the Skyborne Epic Pack ($59.99) or the Warcraft Forever Collection ($79.99), both of which include guaranteed beta access. Or sign up for the free opt-in on the WoW Forever site, which is a lottery with waves and no published odds. The $29.99 Heroic Pack does not include the beta.
If you bought a digital pack there is no key: the beta is added to your account and appears in the Battle.net app. Only the physical Collector's Edition sends an actual code by email, reportedly about an hour after purchase and often in the promotions tab. Watching the Q&A stream does not grant access and there is no Twitch Drops campaign.
Open the Battle.net app, select World of Warcraft, and use the Game Version dropdown to pick World of Warcraft: Forever. It installs separately from your other WoW versions. Accounts with access show an install date of September 17; accounts without show November 4. Blizzard has not published the download size; the shop lists 128 GB of SSD space and community reports say 60 GB or more.
Level 20 at the start, rising to 30 after a couple of weeks and staying there. There is no level 31 to 60 content and no raid testing during the beta.
No. Everything on the beta realms is temporary and is wiped when the beta ends. Name reservation happens separately from October 27 to November 3.
No. Per the shop footnotes, Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes are sent around October 20 and give a friend access from November 4 to November 11, after launch. They do not open the beta.
Do not count on it. A forum report describes a refund on a Forever pack being denied automatically on playtime grounds before the beta had opened, and the bundled cosmetics are delivered immediately. Treat the Epic Pack as buying beta access plus 30 days of Game Time.
October 21, 2026 per Blizzard's pre-purchase page. Some sites print October 22, which is the same moment after a time zone rollover.
Blizzard has not published one and outlets are already posting beta footage without takedowns, but nobody has stated a policy. Check the terms shown when you first log in.
GDKP is banned, addons use the modern API with a built-in damage meter, every tier has a 10 and a 20 player raid plus Onyxia at 40, one difficulty per instance, no rated PvP, Oceanic players on Australian data centres, surnames mandatory. Full recap →
Blizzard's pre-purchase post and Q&A announcement; the level cap schedule from a BlizzCon interview with Clay Stone and Nora Mills via Icy Veins; install and size details from Warcraft Tavern and the official forums. Anything marked reported is not Blizzard's own statement.