Blizzard has announced a new and permanent version of World of Warcraft. It is called World of Warcraft: Forever, and Blizzard's own announcement dates it to 4 November 2026, with a beta on 17 September. It sends players back to the game's original continents and takes characters to level 60. Access comes with an ordinary subscription.

Five names to carry through the rest of this. WoW (the usual short name for World of Warcraft) is set in Azeroth, which is the game's world. WoW Classic, which is the re-released original game, runs on its own servers beside it. A beta is a test version people can play before release. Game Time, which is prepaid days of subscription bought in a block instead of a recurring charge, is the alternative to a monthly bill.

The dates Blizzard gave

What	When	Blizzard's own wording
Beta begins	17 September 2026	"beta beginning September 17", no hour given
Launch	4 November 2026	"globally on November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST"
First new raids	9 December 2026	"New raids unlock on December 9"
Live Q&A about the show	17 September 2026	"Thursday, September 17 at 10:00 a.m. PDT"

The years in that table are ours. Blizzard dates only the launch with a year. The other three sit either side of it in posts its own bylines date to 12 September, and the year on those bylines is ours as well.

One caution on that launch hour, and it is ours rather than Blizzard's. The announcement post writes the same 3:00 p.m. as PDT in one place and PST in another. The panel write-up says PST. Those labels sit an hour apart, so anyone converting to their own clock should wait for Blizzard to settle it.

What Forever actually is

Blizzard describes it as a permanent home that sits alongside modern World of Warcraft and WoW Classic. It says the thing is neither a mode, nor a season, nor another version of Classic. The story sits after Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before Molten Core, which is one of the game's raid dungeons. Players go back to the original continents, and Blizzard names Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Characters level to 60.

The design rules Blizzard published are blunt about what is missing: no flying mounts, and no level scaling, which is the system that quietly adjusts monsters to match your level so nowhere feels too hard. Blizzard's four stated pillars are being approachable and familiar, treating the world as the main character, putting the journey before the destination, and protecting the social side of the game.

Watch the panel yourself

The announcements above came out of BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, where it says what is coming next. Blizzard's panel write-up embeds the replay, and the recording below is that same one: "World of Warcraft: Forever - What's Next Panel | BlizzCon 2026", published on the World of Warcraft YouTube channel.

What is in it

More than a thousand new quests are woven through the level 1 to 60 journey, and Blizzard names four places to go.

Hyjal deals with the aftermath of Archimonde's defeat. Shen'dralas is a hidden mystery between the regions of Mulgore and Desolace. The Riverglades is a frontier of rivers and trade routes carrying more than 150 quests, across much of what Blizzard calls the mid-30s to mid-40s experience. Zephras Isle, which is a starting area up in the sky, covers levels 1 to 12.

Zephras Isle is home to the Skyborne, a new playable race. One thing a newcomer needs first: the Horde and the Alliance are the two sides a player picks between, and a class is the kind of hero you play. You choose a Skyborne character's side when you make it, and the side changes which classes are open to you. Horde Skyborne get the Shaman class, which Blizzard ties to elemental traditions. Alliance Skyborne get the Mage class, which it ties to an arcane legacy. Both sides can also play Warriors, Hunters, Rogues and Druids.

There are nine new dungeons, which are self-contained areas a small group clears together. Eight are named: the Hall of Thanes beneath Ironforge, the Ruins of Lordaeron, the City of Dalaran, Blackmaw Hold, the Drowned City, Krol'dok Stronghold, Alcaz Prison and the Shaper's Terrace. Two raids are named, a raid being the same idea built for a much larger group. The Barrow Deeps is planned as a challenge for ten players at the level cap, and Hyjal Summit is built for twenty. Across the two, Blizzard names new tier sets, which are matched sets of equipment whose pieces give a bonus when worn together, plus a legendary reward it has not detailed.

For fights between players Blizzard introduces a new Battleground, which is a map where two teams of players fight each other, a 15 versus 15 on the Darkspear Islands. It says updates to that side of the game carry on after launch.

Blizzard names two new systems and says its list is only part of what is coming. Legacy progression is aimed at people who like levelling and running extra characters. Camping lets you build a campfire out in the world so other players can stop by, contribute through their professions, which are the crafting and gathering trades a character learns, and share campsite buffs, a buff being a temporary boost. Transmog, the system that changes how gear looks without changing what it does, is opt-in. There are also modern and Classic visual presets, high and standard definition character models, and support for playing with a game controller.

What it means for your wallet

Blizzard names three optional upgrade packs plus a physical box. Our note on one word before the table: Heroic here is part of a product name (it is a label on a thing you buy, and says nothing about how hard anything is). Blizzard sets all of this out in one of its posts, and here it is laid out row by row.

Edition	What it adds
Skyborne Heroic Pack	The Skyborne race and the Zephras Isle start, Early Name Reservation, the Cerulean Prideclaw ground mount, cosmetics, housing decor, one Invite-A-Friend Launch Code
Skyborne Epic Pack	Everything above, plus beta access from 17 September, 30 days of Game Time from 4 November, more cosmetics, pets, tabards, and three Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes in total
Warcraft Forever Collection, limited time	Everything above, plus Warcraft III: Reforged, its Forsaken Kingdom campaign, and Forsaken and Human figurine decor for housing in modern World of Warcraft
Collector's Edition	A physical edition from the Blizzard Gear Store, while supplies last

Blizzard gives no price for any of them, in any post we read. The Heroic Pack is the base, and Blizzard's own wording then stacks the next two on top of it: the Epic Pack starts with everything in the Heroic Pack, and the Collection starts with everything in the Epic Pack. The Collector's Edition is a separate physical purchase from a different shop, and Blizzard says nothing about how it relates to the other three. None of this is a price order, because there is no price to order them by.

Our reading of that table, in three parts. First, the good news, and it is genuinely good: the game itself is included with a subscription or with Game Time, so anyone already paying to play owes nothing extra on 4 November. Nothing Blizzard lists in those packs is a bigger number, a faster kill or a stronger item, and that is worth saying out loud.

Second, that is still not the same as saying the packs are all paint. Plenty in that table is not a cosmetic. The base pack carries a playable race, and Blizzard's panel write-up says the Skyborne come with class access that depends on the side you pick, plus racial abilities of their own. It also carries a mount, a name reservation and a code to invite a friend. The middle pack adds 30 days of Game Time, which is subscription money, and two more invite codes. The largest adds a separate older game and its campaign. Whether Skyborne racial abilities are any stronger than another race's is a thing none of the posts we read says, so we are not saying it either. What we will say is that a playable race reaches into how a character plays, and calling these packs cosmetic would be wrong.

Third, the Cerulean Prideclaw. It comes with the base pack, and Blizzard's own line says players will need to purchase the riding skill in-game to access and use the mount. So this is a mount you have paid real money for, and Blizzard's own bracket says there is a second purchase inside the game between you and riding it. That is a small thing, and it is the kind of small thing that reads badly on launch day.

And here is what none of those posts say. The announcement says the packs include access to the Skyborne race and the Zephras Isle starting area. It points anyone who wants the 17 September beta at the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection. What they never say is whether that race and that zone can be reached at all without buying a pack. That is the question we would put to Blizzard, and none of the three Blizzard posts we read answers it.

What is next

Blizzard scheduled a Forever Deep Dive panel for today, 13 September, at 10:00 a.m. PDT. Both the announcement and the panel write-up invite readers to it, the first promising a closer look at the philosophy, systems and design choices, the second at the systems, rewards and adventures still to come. Both were written on 12 September, so neither can tell us it went ahead or what was in it, and neither can we.

The live Q&A is next, on 17 September at 10:00 a.m. PDT. Blizzard is gathering questions on the World of Warcraft forums and will answer them on its own Warcraft Twitch and YouTube channels, with a recording available afterwards. That is the same day the beta opens.

After launch, Blizzard says new raids arrive on 9 December. Past that it lists more raids and dungeons, updates for fights between players, more world content, and more quests through the level 1 to 60 journey. It also lists Hardcore, which is a mode where a character who dies is gone for good, and a rebuilt version of an iconic raid. It describes neither. It puts a date on none of those.

The beta, the Q&A and the December raids are all on our calendar, and the 4 November launch is on our release tracker. We keep both current, and every row carries the date we last checked it.