World of Warcraft: Forever is Blizzard’s new, permanent version of original Azeroth: level 60 forever, no flying, no level scaling, and years of new content planned. Here is everything Blizzard has officially announced, in one place, with sources.
Deep dive Last verified: October 17, 2026. Covers the BlizzCon 2026 announcements and Blizzard’s follow-up articles through October 2026. Sources are listed at the end of this article.
World of Warcraft: Forever at a glance
Launch
November 4, 2026, 3:00 p.m. PST (global)
Access
Included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time
Optional upgrades
Skyborne Heroic Pack · Skyborne Epic Pack · Warcraft Forever Collection (available through January 11, 2027)
Beta
September 17 – October 21, 2026, with the Skyborne Epic Pack or Warcraft Forever Collection
Early Name Reservation
October 27 – November 3, 2026, with any upgrade; up to three characters
Setting
After Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before Molten Core
Level cap
60, permanent. No flying mounts, no level scaling.
New race
Skyborne. Choose Horde or Alliance at character creation.
New regions
Mount Hyjal, Shen’dralas, the Riverglades and Zephras Isle (the Skyborne starting isle)
Content at launch
More than 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids
Raids
Barrow Deeps (10-player) and Hyjal Summit (20-player), unlocking December 9
Blizzard announced Forever at the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony as “our new, third World of Warcraft experience alongside Modern and Classic.” It is set in a reimagined original Azeroth, after the events of Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before Molten Core. Players return to the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, level to 60, and keep progressing through new stories and updates instead of new expansions that raise the level cap.
Blizzard is explicit that this is “not a mode, a season, or a new version of Classic.” It is a permanent game that the Classic team plans to keep expanding, building on lessons from WoW Classic and Season of Discovery.
The four design pillars
Blizzard says every addition is measured against four pillars:
Approachable and familiar: challenge comes from preparation, communication and cooperation. There are no flying mounts and no level scaling.
The world as the main character: leveling and the open world matter as much as endgame.
The journey before the destination: no planned level-cap increases, and rewards come from playing the game.
Protecting and nurturing social experiences: even quality-of-life features are judged by how they affect the way players meet and group.
Official videos
Official video: World of Warcraft: Forever | New Horizons | Cinematic Trailer (World of Warcraft on YouTube).
Official video: World of Warcraft: Forever | Gameplay Trailer (World of Warcraft on YouTube).
More than a thousand new quests are woven through the level 1–60 journey. Blizzard’s Opening Ceremony counted “three new zones”. The What’s Next recap describes four new or reimagined regions, including the Skyborne starting isle:
Mount Hyjal: the aftermath of Archimonde’s defeat, Darkwhisper Gorge, and the effort to restore a recovering land.
Shen’dralas: a long-hidden region between Mulgore and Desolace tied to the Shen’dralar, Eldre’Thalas, Dire Maul and the centaur tribes.
The Riverglades: a frontier of rivers, grasslands, trade routes and old grudges, with more than 150 new quests across much of the mid-30s to mid-40s.
Zephras Isle: an elemental, skybound starting experience for levels 1–12, with architecture inspired by Skywall.
The Skyborne
The Skyborne are Forever’s new playable race, and they begin on Zephras Isle. At character creation you choose a faction:
Horde Skyborne
Alliance Skyborne
Tradition
Elemental traditions
The arcane legacy of their ancestors
Exclusive class
Shaman
Mage
Shared classes
Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Druid (with new Skyborne druid forms)
Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Druid (with new Skyborne druid forms)
The Skyborne also get new racials, customizations, voices and dances. Access to the race and the Zephras Isle starting experience comes with the Skyborne Heroic Pack or higher.
Nine new dungeons
All nine open at launch and bring long-discussed places in the original world to life:
Hall of Thanes (beneath Ironforge)
Ruins of Lordaeron
An excavation site above Whelgar’s Excavation
City of Dalaran
The Drowned City
Krol’dok Stronghold
Alcaz Prison
Blackmaw Hold
Shaper’s Terrace (titan mysteries in Un’Goro)
Raids and PvP
Barrow Deeps: a maximum-level 10-player raid.
Hyjal Summit: 20-player raid encounters at one of Warcraft’s most important locations.
Both bring new tier sets, plus a legendary reward Blizzard hasn’t fully revealed. New raids unlock December 9, 2026.
Darkspear Islands: a new 15 vs 15 battleground off the coast of Kalimdor, combining control points with Arathi Basin-style flag captures and defense.
Blizzard also promises more PvP updates. On the PvP ruleset, faction-balance tools similar to Season of Discovery’s can temporarily limit new character creation for one faction.
Unconfirmed Earlier RUIN coverage also listed Onyxia’s Lair returning as a 40-player raid on December 9. Blizzard’s official recaps don’t mention it, so treat it as unconfirmed until Blizzard says so.
Camping and professions
Camping turns the Cooking Fire into a Basic Campfire. Placing one creates a campsite where players can rest and use vendors, repairs, profession workspaces and one-hour buffs. To get the buffs, you sit by the fire for a few moments and become rested.
A Basic Campfire takes up to three crafted objects from nearby players: one per player, on a shared one-hour cooldown.
Each profession has three objects learned at different skill levels. Examples: the Blacksmith’s Sharpening Wheel (Attack Power), the Tailor’s Faction Banner (Spirit) and the Herbalist’s Incense Candle (Intellect). These don’t stack with similar class buffs.
The first objects unlock at profession skill 20. Advanced ones come from Blueprint recipes that drop from dungeon bosses. Upgraded Campfires from Cooking allow five or ten objects.
Professions also get more than 600 new recipes, and crafted food can grant a small experience bonus and stat boosts.
The Legacy system
Legacy rewards players who love leveling and alts. You earn Legacy Points from Legacy Challenges, such as leveling a specific class or reaching a skill milestone. You spend them in Legacy Trees: Adventure, Professions and Resourcefulness.
Points are shared across your characters, and each character spends them separately in its own trees.
At launch, each character can spend up to 16 points, and you can earn up to 65 points to start.
Example perks: Well Rested (more rested experience), Bountiful Harvest (more gathered materials) and Reagent Economy (removes reagent requirements from class abilities).
Extra points feed a Legacy Reward Track of cosmetic and prestige rewards, such as the Spectral Bear Cub, with no competitive advantage.
Forever also adopts the Burning Crusade-style mount cost: the cost moves into riding training, and you get a mount when you learn the skill.
Realmless rulesets
Instead of picking a realm, you choose a ruleset. Each ruleset works as one large ecosystem rather than a single realm.
Ruleset
What it is
Normal
The baseline experience. PvP happens only when players choose to engage.
PvP
Contested territory carries real danger and open-world conflict. You can create characters for one faction only.
Roleplaying
For players who want to lean into the fantasy of Azeroth.
Hardcore
Arrives after launch. Death has lasting consequences. It is a fully enclosed ecosystem, but a Hardcore character that dies can transfer to another ruleset.
Grouping across rulesets is not supported. Battlegrounds may include players from other rulesets, except Hardcore.
Factions stay separate: Horde and Alliance still can’t group.
Collections and Legacy Points are account-wide across rulesets. Hardcore is the exception: its progress can flow out, but nothing flows back in.
Characters use two-part names that are unique per region, reserved first come, first served.
A language preference (Options → Languages and Social → Preferred Online Language) helps you meet players who share it.
Transmog and presentation
Transmog is opt-in. You can configure or disable it at a city transmogrifier. Choosing Classic Mode at first launch disables it automatically. With it off, you see other players in their actual gear.
Dungeon Uncommon and Rare bind-on-pickup appearances go to all eligible looters. Epic raid appearances go only to the player the item binds to.
Modern and Classic visual presets, HD or SD character models, restored Classic animations for HD models, and official gamepad support.
Subtle rendering updates: rivers that flow through Elwynn Forest, mist over Darkshore, moonlight through the trees in Ashenvale. The original art style is preserved.
Combat, classes and items
Combat stays rooted in WoW Classic’s pace. Blizzard expects an ordinary creature to take roughly 10–15 seconds to defeat solo, and crowd control and threat still matter. Itemization keeps the Classic stats but combines hit and crit across spell, melee and ranged. It also adds new stats and situational trinkets. Each race gets two active and two passive racials, and there are six new race/class combinations: Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock and Undead Paladin.
World of Warcraft: Forever upgrade editions (Blizzard)
Edition
What it adds (beyond base access with a subscription or Game Time)
Skyborne Heroic Pack
Skyborne race and Zephras Isle; Early Name Reservation; Cerulean Prideclaw mount (riding skill bought in game); cosmetics; Skyborne housing decor for modern WoW; one Invite-A-Friend Launch Code
Skyborne Epic Pack
Everything in Heroic, plus beta access, 30 days of Game Time from November 4, more cosmetics, tabards, pets, and three Invite-A-Friend codes in total
Warcraft Forever Collection
Everything in Epic, plus Warcraft III: Reforged, the Forsaken Kingdom campaign and housing figurine decor. Available through January 11, 2027.
Key dates
Date (Pacific)
Milestone
September 17 – October 21, 2026
Beta (Epic Pack or Collection)
October 20, 2026
Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes start arriving by email
Early Name Reservation, up to three characters, with any upgrade
November 4, 2026, 3:00 p.m. PST
Global launch
November 4 – 11, 2026
Invite-A-Friend codes let invited friends play without a subscription
December 9, 2026
New raids unlock
Roadmap
After the December 9 raids, Blizzard plans more raids, dungeons, PvP updates, world content and quests throughout levels 1–60. Hardcore and a revamped iconic raid follow, along with major updates to keep this “evergreen version of Azeroth” growing. Blizzard hasn’t given dates for these later items.
What it means for RUIN
RUIN is deploying on the Alliance, North America PvP ruleset. Forever’s design lines up with what RUIN has organized around for more than two decades:
One faction per PvP account. Every RUIN member on the PvP ruleset will be Alliance, so the force can’t split.
Realmless rulesets concentrate the population, so RUIN’s guild and its supporting tags (RUINOUS, RUIN NATION) all play in one ecosystem.
The 10- and 20-player raids suit a dedicated core raid guild. The World PvP force focuses on contested territory and the 15 vs 15 battleground.
Camping and two-part names reward being visible and present in the world, which is exactly the kind of organized presence RUIN brings.
November 4, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. PST, globally. The beta ran from September 17 to October 21, 2026. Early Name Reservation runs October 27 to November 3 for players with any Forever upgrade.
Is World of Warcraft: Forever free with a WoW subscription?
Yes. Access is included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time. The Skyborne Heroic Pack, Skyborne Epic Pack and Warcraft Forever Collection are optional upgrades; the Skyborne race requires at least the Heroic Pack.
Is Forever the same as WoW Classic?
No. Blizzard calls Forever a third World of Warcraft experience alongside Modern and Classic. It keeps the original continents and a permanent level 60 cap, but adds new zones, more than 1,000 quests, nine dungeons, new raids, the Skyborne race and new systems such as Camping and Legacy progression.
Does World of Warcraft: Forever have realms?
No. Forever is realmless. You choose a ruleset (Normal, PvP or Roleplaying, with Hardcore after launch), and each ruleset works as one large ecosystem. Grouping across rulesets is not supported, and factions stay separate.
Can I play both factions on the PvP ruleset?
No. On the PvP ruleset you can create characters for only one faction. Normal, Roleplaying and Hardcore allow both.
Will there be flying or level scaling?
No. Blizzard has ruled out flying mounts and level scaling, and has no planned level-cap increases.
What raids are in Forever?
Blizzard has announced the Barrow Deeps (a 10-player raid) and Hyjal Summit (20-player), unlocking December 9, 2026. More raids and a revamped iconic raid are planned later.
Which faction and ruleset is RUIN playing?
RUIN is deploying on the Alliance, North America PvP ruleset. See RUIN’s World of Warcraft: Forever page for dates and how to enlist.
Prepared by the RUIN Gaming editorial team. Research was assisted by AI tools; every fact was checked against the sources listed at the end of this article.
