World of Warcraft: Forever

Forever is a third way to play World of Warcraft, running at the same time as the modern game and Classic. It keeps the core rules and the look of the 2004 game, but adds its own stories, zones and systems that never existed in the original history. Players often call it "Classic+". It was announced at BlizzCon 2026 and went live on November 4, 2026.

The story is fixed in the first year of the original game: after the Forsaken Kingdom campaign of Warcraft III Reforged and before Molten Core and The Burning Crusade. Blizzard says Forever is not part of the same continuity as modern WoW. Access comes with a normal WoW subscription or game time, which also covers the modern game.

• Level cap 60, with no plan to raise it: new content grows the world, not the levels.
• No flying mounts and no level scaling; the world is meant to stay dangerous.
• Updated graphics: new lighting, volumetric fog, better water and shadows, with a choice of high- or standard-definition character models.

Forever stays on the two old continents, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, but expands them with new and reworked zones and more than 1,000 new quests across levels 1-60. The city of Dalaran also stands in the Alterac Mountains.

Only the eight original races plus the new Skyborne are playable; races added from The Burning Crusade onward are not. All nine classes received new or updated abilities and talents, and every race now has two active and two passive racial abilities.

The Skyborne, also called the shen'dorei or "hidden people", start on Zephras Isle. At character creation you choose a side: Horde-aligned Windshapers can become Shamans, while Alliance-aligned High Order Skyborne can become Mages. Both versions can also be Druids, Hunters, Rogues and Warriors.

Nine new five-player Dungeons and Instances cover levels 13 to 60, next to the classic ones such as Deadmines and Blackrock Depths.

• Raids (unlocked on December 9 for level 60 players): Barrow Deeps (10 players) and Hyjal Summit (20 players) on Mount Hyjal, and Onyxia's Lair (40 players) in Dustwallow Marsh.
• New battleground Darkspear Islands, off the coast of Dustwallow Marsh: 15 against 15 for levels 30-60. Teams hold four capture points and a central flag, and the first to 2,000 points wins.
• PvP progress uses Honor and Rank points from battlegrounds, PvP quests and weekly seasonal tasks.

As in the other versions, each character can learn two primary Professions and all three secondary ones; in Forever these are Cooking, First Aid and Fishing. Every profession got dozens of new and updated recipes.