Blizzard details World of Warcraft: Forever ahead of November 5 launch

Blizzard Entertainment outlined the systems behind World of Warcraft: Forever at a media roundtable held online on October 29, 2026, and confirmed the standalone server will launch officially on November 5. Lead game designer Chris Zierhut and senior engineer Nora Mills attended the session, according to gamemeca.com.

Forever is an independent server separate from the main World of Warcraft and WoW Classic servers, built on classic Azeroth. It adds high-resolution character models and new lighting and shadow effects, and its talent tree was fully rebuilt from scratch based on the 2005 version.

The design follows four principles: the journey matters more than the result, familiarity for new players, the world as its own character, and protecting social experiences. Beta feedback led to improvements in server technology and social features, along with class and race tuning that included shaman and druid, Blizzard said.

Dungeon and raid drop information is deliberately hidden at launch, and new quests and crafting recipes were added. A Legacy system rewards players for leveling multiple classes and races, unlocking cosmetics such as a spectral tiger mount. Content updates will bring new raids, PvP and world content, with raid difficulty targeted between Molten Core and Naxxramas.

New race and class combinations include Forsaken paladins and the new Skyborn race, and Blizzard said entirely new classes or races remain possible. Development of Forever began around mid-2024 during Season of Discovery, though concepts date to the early 2020s, shortly after WoW Classic launched in 2019.