Blizzard just announced World of Warcraft Forever, and I'm oddly tempted to go back
Blizzard's reimagined take on Classic WoW launches in November, promising two decades of hindsight applied to the game's original zones. Here's what's actually changing.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard used its showcase this week to reveal World of Warcraft: Forever, the game formerly known by the working title Classic+, and confirmed it's coming to PC on 4 November. If you've spent twenty years half expecting Blizzard to eventually just admit the original zones were the best bit, this is that admission, dressed up as a proper release.
Executive producer Holly Longdale described it as your "new permanent home," which is a bold thing to promise about an MMO in 2026, but the pitch is at least coherent: take the launch-era map, keep the two decades of systems knowledge Blizzard has picked up since, and build new content inside the old world rather than sending you off to Outland or Draenor again.
What's actually new
Forever adds a new playable race called Skyborne, fresh race and class combinations, and entirely new talent trees for every class rather than a straight rerun of Classic's original ones. On top of that there are three new zones, over a thousand new quests, several new dungeons, and both 10 and 20-player raids. Crucially, the story stays anchored in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. No expansion-hopping, no new continents, just more reasons to be in the old ones.
Your new permanent home.
When you can actually play it
A beta goes live through Battle.net on 17 September, with full launch following on 4 November. If you already have an active WoW subscription or game time, Forever doesn't need buying separately, it's included. That's a friendlier setup than a lot of "definitive edition" relaunches manage.
Is this one for you
If you played original WoW and drifted off somewhere around an expansion that added a new continent, sky islands or whatever came after that, this is squarely built to win you back without demanding you catch up on fifteen years of plot first. And if you've never played any of it, starting fresh in a version explicitly designed to be a sensible entry point is arguably a better position to be in than the people who've been queuing since 2004. I'm one of the ones who drifted off around the sky islands, for what it's worth, and I'm annoyed at how well this pitch is working on me.