Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon on 12 Sep 2026: its third permanent version of WoW, sitting alongside Modern and Classic rather than replacing either. It launches globally on 4 Nov 2026 at 3pm PST/PDT and is included with an existing WoW Subscription or Game Time. No separate purchase is needed to play; the optional Skyborne Heroic Pack, Skyborne Epic Pack and Warcraft Forever Collection add cosmetics, and the last two include beta access.
The pitch is simple: original Azeroth, the level 60 cap kept permanently, and the world built outwards rather than upwards. Here is what that actually contains at launch, and what is scheduled after it.
Four new zones
Three of the four are levelling zones slotted into the existing 1-60 climb. The fourth is the endgame. All four sit on the original continents rather than on a new one, and every one of them fills a space that was empty or unfinished on the vanilla map. Our levelling guide maps the full 1-60 route through them.
Zephras Isle (levels 1-12)
The starting zone for the new Skyborne race, and the first thing most new characters will see. It is a floating island, visually built on the Skywall look: air elementals, wind-worn stone, structures that are failing. Long ago a group of Highborne refugees found the place and struck a pact with the elementals living there, and the Skyborne are what that bond produced. The starting quests have you working out why the isle's condition is deteriorating. Skyborne can go Alliance or Horde, but every one of them starts here.
The Riverglades (levels 30-45)
The biggest of the new levelling zones and the one built for the stretch where vanilla's map ran thin. It sits in the Eastern Kingdoms between Redridge, the Burning Steppes, the Badlands and the Swamp of Sorrows, described by Blizzard as Azeroth's forgotten frontier: a region both human and orc forces settled and neither finished with. More than 150 new quests, a neutral goblin port, open PvP encounters, and Krol'dok Stronghold, an outdoor ogre dungeon, sit inside it. If you have ever hit 35 in Classic and not known where to go, this is the answer.
Shen'dralas (roughly 30-50)
Fills the gap that used to sit between Mulgore and Desolace on the Kalimdor map. The zone is built around the Shen'dralar, the Highborne who once ruled Eldre'Thalas, and their prince Tortheldrin, and it picks up the Gelkis and Magram centaur story that Desolace left hanging. It ties into Dire Maul, Razorfen Downs and Maraudon questlines. The level range is Blizzard's rough guidance, not a hard bracket, and may shift before launch.
Mount Hyjal (level 60)
The endgame zone, and not the Cataclysm version. This Hyjal sits in Forever's own timeline, after Archimonde's defeat at the end of the Third War: the story is about what the restoration of Nordrassil costs and what the war left behind. It carries multiple questlines, reputation grinds and the entrances to two of the launch raids.
The old zones, reworked
Beyond the four new zones, Blizzard has gone back over the original map. Dalaran is now a walkable city with its own quests and a dungeon underneath it. Blizzard's own launch screenshots show a new lighting pass across Ashenvale, Darkshore, Darnassus, Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades, and existing zones have been filled in where the vanilla map had blank space. The stated total is more than 1,000 new quests across all of it.
Nine new dungeons
Every one is available at launch, and between them they cover the whole climb. Two of the early ones lean towards a faction: Hall of Thanes is Alliance territory that a Horde group can sneak into, and Ruins of Lordaeron is the reverse. Blizzard has said several dungeons double as explorable areas with their own outdoor quests, City of Dalaran among them.
| Dungeon | Level | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Hall of Thanes | 13-18 | Beneath Ironforge |
| Ruins of Lordaeron | 15-20 | Tirisfal Glades |
| Excavation Site | 24-29 | Wetlands, above Whelgar's Excavation |
| City of Dalaran | 28-33 | Alterac |
| The Drowned City | 35-40 | Stranglethorn Vale |
| Krol'dok Stronghold | 40-45 | The Riverglades (outdoor) |
| Alcaz Prison | 48-53 | Alcaz Island, off Dustwallow |
| Blackmaw Hold | 55-60 | Azshara |
| Shaper's Terrace | 58-60 | Un'Goro Crater |
Raids: Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia
Three raids are live for launch, though none of them opens on day one. The first raid unlock is scheduled for 9 Dec 2026, five weeks after launch, which gives a fresh server population time to reach 60 and gear up before anyone is standing at a raid entrance.
The Barrow Deeps (10-player)
The prison the night elves built to hold Illidan Stormrage after he created a second Well of Eternity, dug into the earth beneath Nordrassil, with more than one way in (one of them in Hyjal). It is full of sleeping Druids of the Claw and whatever has grown around them in ten thousand years. Eight bosses have been shown so far:
- Deepscar Matriarch
- Elder Tangleclaw
- Khalith the Dreadspinner
- Well of Sorrow
- Amethrax
- Del'lynar Songwood
- Ravus and Darlissa
- Sonya Darkhallow
Hyjal Summit (20-player)
The bigger of the two new raids, set on the summit around the World Tree in the aftermath of Archimonde's defeat. Thirteen encounters have been named: Bandalar, Ancient of Decay, Time-Lost Battalion, Sylvestris Dusksong, Old Gloomlurker, Gharalis the Abyssal, Kathris the Haunted, Anara Chillwind, Elder Minderel, Tracker Stillwind, Council of Thorns, Nythus the Dreadbound and The Wild King. What the final boss actually is remains speculation until launch.
Onyxia's Lair (40-player)
The one returning raid at launch, and the only 40-player one. Onyxia appears to remain the sole boss of her lair; Blizzard has not detailed any changes to the encounter.
What comes after
Blizzard's roadmap runs to five new raids by the middle of 2027: a 10-player and a 20-player raid in spring 2027, then a returning classic raid alongside a new one in summer 2027, plus a further zone in spring. Which raids, and which zone, is not confirmed.
The Skyborne
Forever's one new race is a line of elves shaped by the pact their Highborne ancestors made with the air elementals of Zephras Isle. They can join either faction, and the faction decides part of the class list: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue and Druid are open to every Skyborne; Horde Skyborne can also be Shamans, working with the Earthen Ring, and Alliance Skyborne can be Mages, working with the Kirin Tor. They get their own Druid forms, racials, voices, dances and customisation options.
The existing races get new class options too. Forsaken Paladins and Dwarf Shamans are the two Blizzard has named.
Darkspear Islands
One new battleground at launch: a 15-versus-15 map set in the Darkspear islands, with seasonal refreshes planned through 2027. Blizzard has also said it will not permit GDKP (gold-bid raid loot runs) in Forever, and has described the economy as something it is taking very seriously, which is a pointed change from how Classic's economy was left to run.
Camping
A system with nothing to do with combat or levels. Players can pitch a camp almost anywhere in the open world. Anyone passing can use their own trade skills to contribute to it, and everyone present gets a buff once they have sat there for a moment. It is small on paper, but it is deliberate: Blizzard's associate production director Clay Stone described it as an attempt to get players talking to each other again, in a genre where most interaction now happens through a queue.
A permanent level 60
The world is the main character.
That is how Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones framed the project at BlizzCon, and it is the reason for the cap. Every other version of WoW eventually pushes players into a new expansion and a higher number. Forever is built not to. Blizzard says the cap will hold "for the foreseeable future": rather than a new tier of gear and levels turning everything before it into a means to an end, new content gets built into the existing 1-60 range, so what a character earns now is not invalidated by whatever comes next. There is no overhaul to core combat, and a toggle lets you switch character models between the original (SD) and updated (HD) art.
The Legacy System, briefly
For anyone planning more than one character, Forever adds account-wide progression: Legacy Challenges (achievement-style goals across classes, professions, dungeons and raids) award Legacy Points that are earned once for the account but spent separately by each character across three trees, Adventures, Professions and Resourcefulness. Around 65 points can be earned at launch, with 16 spendable. We have covered it properly in our levelling guide, linked below.
Key dates
- 12 Sep 2026: announced at BlizzCon
- 17 Sep to 21 Oct 2026: beta, capped at level 30
- 4 Nov 2026, 3pm PST/PDT: global launch
- 9 Dec 2026: first raid unlock
- Spring and summer 2027: two further raid tiers and a new zone, per Blizzard's roadmap