WoW Forever, sourced: release date, beta, prices, the Skyborne, every new zone and system — and a live feed of what Blizzard says next

Blizzard's one-paragraph description: 'Set after the events of Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before Molten Core, players will return to the original continents, adventure to level 60, and continue progressing through new stories, experiences, and updates inspired by years of player passion and feedback.' It is not Classic and not a season: 'This is not a mode, a season, or a new version of Classic. It is a promise to keep building this world with the community, guided by your feedback, and made to last.' The four design pillars are 'approachable and familiar, the world as the main character, the journey before the destination, and protecting and nurturing the social experiences that make Azeroth feel alive'.

The rules that follow from those pillars are stated bluntly — 'no flying mounts, no level scaling' — and the tone is deliberate slowness: an ordinary creature takes 'roughly 10–15 seconds to defeat', dungeons 'stay tactical', and Blizzard is 'being thoughtful about convenience, because every quality-of-life choice can shape the way players meet'. The press called it Classic Plus; the vs-Classic page goes through the eleven differences Blizzard has actually stated.

Beta: Thursday, 17 September 2026 through 21 October, for owners of the Skyborne Epic Pack ($59.99) or the Warcraft Forever Collection ($79.99) — no open beta, no keys, though the product page has a free Beta Opt-In for 'a chance to beta test'. Name reservation for pack owners: 27 October to 3 November, first come, first served. Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes: emailed to pack buyers from 20 October, each giving a friend access from 4 to 11 November (gift purchases excluded). Launch: Wednesday, 4 November 2026, 3:00 p.m. Pacific, globally, which is 23:00 UTC. Raids: 9 December 2026. The game is included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time; the packs are optional and add the Skyborne race and Zephras Isle (from $29.99), beta access and 30 days of Game Time ($59.99), and Warcraft III: Reforged with its Forsaken Kingdom campaign ($79.99, on sale until 11 January 2027). A physical Collector's Edition was reported at $150 and sold out.

Blizzard's own announcement contains one typo worth knowing about — its closing line says the beta begins 'November 17', while every other sentence says September 17 — and its two panel recaps give the Riverglades 'more than 150' and 'nearly 200' quests. This site shows both readings rather than silently picking one; the roadmap hub's changelog records every such decision.

Three open-world zones — the Riverglades (mid-30s to mid-40s, 150–200 quests, Stranglethorn-sized, reached by a new ship route from Tanaris), Mount Hyjal ('the aftermath of Archimonde's defeat'), and Shen'dralas (between Mulgore and Desolace, tied to Eldre'Thalas and the centaur) — plus Zephras Isle, the Skyborne's levels 1–12 start. Nine dungeons, all named: Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron, an excavation above Whelgar's, City of Dalaran, Blackmaw Hold, Drowned City, Krol'dok Stronghold, Alcaz Prison, Shaper's Terrace. Two raids from 9 December: Hyjal Summit (20-player) and the Barrow Deeps (10-player, max level), with 'new tier sets' and an unrevealed legendary. One battleground: the Darkspear Islands, 15 v 15. New ship routes including Stormwind Harbor. Refreshed starting zones, Wetlands and Desolace.

What Blizzard has not published for any of it: level ranges beyond the Riverglades, quest lists, boss names, loot, maps. The World hub keeps each place to Blizzard's own sentence.

Legacy: complete challenges ('leveling a specific class or reaching a particular skill milestone') to earn Legacy Points shared across all your alts, spend up to 16 per character in three trees (Professions, Adventure, Resourcefulness), earn up to 65 at launch, and feed the rest into a cosmetic Reward Track. Camping: the Cooking Fire becomes a Basic Campfire that makes a campsite with vendors, repairs, workspaces and one-hour buffs, holding three crafted profession objects (five or ten with Cooking upgrades), one per player. Realmless: choose Normal, PvP or Roleplaying — Hardcore after launch — instead of a realm; group only within a ruleset; two-part names unique per region. Transmog: opt-in, off automatically in Classic Mode, with appearance rules by item quality. Professions: 600+ new recipes, food that grants XP, Blueprints from dungeon bosses. Itemization: merged hit and crit, healing that also hits, situational trinkets, blue dungeon uniques.

Classes and races: the nine Classic classes with a new 16-point talent milestone and three buffs made baseline; every race rebuilt to two active and two passive racials (Dwarf and Undead published); six new race-class combinations (Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock, Undead Paladin); and the Skyborne, who can be Shaman if Horde-aligned, Mage if Alliance-aligned, and Warrior, Hunter, Rogue or Druid on either side. Only the Paladin has a full published change list.

Five hubs, each with the pages under it listed at the foot of this page, plus two live feeds and a codes page. Every page ends with the Blizzard articles it quotes and the date they were read. The author box on each page is the editor's — one person, named, with a photo — and the editorial-process page explains the AI-assisted drafting and the human check that follows.

The refusals are the point. No class 'changes' for classes Blizzard has not detailed. No dungeon boss lists, loot tables or leveling routes for content nobody has played. No 'datamined' or 'leaked' figures. No system requirements page, because Blizzard has published none for Forever and this site will not quote aggregators. No promo codes, because there are none. When the beta opens on 17 September and the datamines flood in, this site will keep to what Blizzard states or what can be seen in the live game and labelled as such.

Google Trends for 'wow forever' in the United States went from zero on 11 September to its peak on the 13th and was still at three-quarters of that peak on the 16th; on a shared scale it out-searched the week's other new game terms. The official forum's WoW: Forever category filled with hundreds of replies within four days, and four fan domains launched in the same window. The chart is from the scanner that found the term, read on 16 September 2026; it is the only non-Blizzard number on this page, and it is labelled as such.

It is for the player deciding whether to subscribe again, the Classic player deciding whether to move, the retail player wondering what 'no flying' means in practice, and anyone trying to tell Blizzard's statements apart from the guesswork now filling search results. It is not a database: Wowhead and the Warcraft Wiki will index every item and quest once the beta client is datamined, and this site links to Blizzard rather than competing with them on lookups. It is not a leveling guide, because no route can be honest before the zones have been walked. And it is not a news site in the reporting sense — the live feeds are Blizzard's own words, unrewritten; the prose pages are the reading of them.

If you want one page: the release-date hub has the countdown, the dates and the money. If you want the systems: the guide hub. If you want to know what Blizzard has not said: every page has a 'not published' list, and the roadmap hub keeps the open questions in one place.

17 September: the beta opens for Epic Pack and Collection owners, and Blizzard hosts a live developer Q&A at 10:00 a.m. PDT. Per-class articles are 'planned', undated. 4 November: launch. 9 December: raids. After that, Blizzard's undated list — more raids, dungeons, PvP updates, quests, Hardcore, 'a revamped iconic raid'. The roadmap hub tracks each; the news feed and forum watch catch Blizzard's posts within minutes; this page and the hubs are edited by hand afterwards, and the edit is dated.