What is WoW Forever
World of Warcraft: Forever is Blizzard’s official “Classic Plus”. It was announced at BlizzCon on 2026-09-12 by the WoW Classic team as “a new permanent home alongside modern and Classic WoW”. verified
It launches 2026-11-04 at 3:00 pm Pacific (23:00 UTC). It comes with a normal WoW subscription or game time. No separate purchase is needed. verified
In one table
Section titled “In one table”| Thing | Forever |
|---|---|
| Level cap | 60 |
| Classes | The nine originals: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, Warlock, Druid |
| Talents | Three trees per class, vanilla names, revamped. Milestones at 11, 21, 31 and a new 16-point milestone |
| Races | The eight originals plus Skyborne, a new elven race with an Alliance (High Order) and a Horde (Windshaper) variant |
| New race/class combos | Undead Paladin, Dwarf Shaman, Human Hunter, Gnome Priest, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock |
| World | Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor plus new zones (Zephras Isle, Riverglades, Shen’dralas, Mount Hyjal). No flying. No level scaling |
| Dungeons | All the originals plus 9 new ones |
| Raids at launch | Barrow Deeps (10), Hyjal Summit (20), Onyxia’s Lair (40). No flex sizing |
| Servers | Realmless. You pick a ruleset (Normal, PvP, RP; Hardcore later). Each ruleset is one mega-realm per region. Factions never mix |
| Names | Two-part names (first name plus surname) |
| Shop | No WoW Token, no boosts, GDKP banned |
| Client | Modern engine. Addons use the retail (Midnight) API. Old Classic addons do not load |
What it is not
Section titled “What it is not”- Not retail. No flying, no Mythic Plus, no level scaling, no transmog shop.
- Not Classic Era or Season of Discovery. Different talents, new zones, new dungeons, new raids.
- Not a private server. It is a first-party Blizzard product, and the private servers people played on (Turtle WoW, Ascension, Stormforge) were shut down in 2026. verified
Why people are excited
Section titled “Why people are excited”Vanilla’s world and pacing, with the rough edges sanded: every spec gets talents that make it work, professions get 600+ new recipes and a camping system, and account-wide Legacy perks reward playing more than one character. The catch is that the client is modern, so the addon ecosystem is starting over. See Addons that work.
Your normal subscription. Optional paid packs unlock the Skyborne race and cosmetics. See Editions and pricing.
Sources
Section titled “Sources”- https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24303313/world-of-warcraft-forever-deep-dive-panel-recap
- https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24301508/
- https://blizzardwatch.com/2026/09/13/world-warcraft-forever-will-realmless/
- https://www.wowhead.com/news/wow-forever-will-have-addon-changes-from-midnight-382921