World of Warcraft: Forever Review In Progress- Like A Warm Embrace From An Old Friend

Published Nov 4, 2026, 11:07 AM EST James is a gaming writer from London who has spent thousands of hours exploring titles from every genre. Though he has a particular affinity for multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and League of Legends, he has also put thousands of hours into single-player experiences, from deep RPGs to epic PC strategies. When he's not playing or writing, he can usually be found supporting his beloved Brentford FC. World of Warcraft: Forever is finally nearly here, a new game designed around the original 2004 setting and gameplay, with fresh locations, dungeons, features, and quality-of-life changes to make the whole experience feel new, even if you’ve been playing for more than two decades. Few games can claim to have impacted culture everywhere as World of Warcraft has since debuting over two decades ago. The perpetually successful MMO continues to draw in millions of players every month, but it’s a very different game to the one we played all those years ago, and longtime fans yearned for a simpler time. That led to the release of WoW Classic in 2019, a monstrously successful venture that returned players to the game’s earliest throes, before moving through the expansions all the way up to Mists of Pandaria. As is often the case with MMOs, though, the relentless passage of time has seen the Classic community wane, and Blizzard once again needs something new to recapture that magic. That is the scenario which Forever steps into, and there really are thousands of additions and changes from the version of Classic that we are all so familiar with. It’s a huge swing, but after spending plenty of time exploring everything it has offered up to this point, it really does feel like it could be the biggest home run the developer has had in a long time. New Content Wherever You Look Blizzard Entertainment One of the main issues with the longevity of the original Classic run is that, not only did players know what was coming (as well as the best ways to progress through the content quickly), it was also essentially finite. Having to stick to the formula that players were expecting was a double-edged sword because it was an instant win for Blizzard who knew exactly what the community wanted, but it also became very difficult for them to breathe new life into the experience when all was said and done, without releasing a full expansion. That’s where WoW: Forever starts with an immediate advantage, benefiting from the foundation of the recognizable Classic setting while at the same time giving the developer the license to really open the floodgates and experiment. And experiment they have, adding new regions and locations to explore, more than 1000 extra quests, a new race, nine dungeons, two endgame raids and a whole lot more besides. Though not all of that was available to test, all the additions that were made available felt like a natural part of a living, breathing world. The Skyborne have a rich character about them as a people, and add nice variety to the limited range of races we previously had available. At the same time, the four new instances that players have been able to explore so far all certainly have their strengths and weaknesses, but it’s easy to see a world where you could convince yourself that they’ve been present in Classic the whole time. The old zones that we’re all so familiar with at this point have also received a refresh in many cases, with environmental changes, new friendly NPCs (and enemies), and new content to complete. The new zones (several of which have been added to accommodate the new Skyborne starting experience) also feel settled and comfortable in the wider continents they’re found in. All of this is to say that rather than being a garish attempt at modern art, the changes in WoW: Forever feel more like the restoration of an old tapestry. The images are recognizable, but they’re more vivid and alive, and it feels like the player will constantly notice details that they couldn’t see before. Quality-Of-Life Without Retail’s Issues Blizzard Entertainment One of the biggest things to get to grips with if you’re heading over to WoW: Forever after experience with Classic is that almost every underlying system has seen some form of changes. Professions are one of the areas where those alterations are most stark, with a myriad of new approaches designed to bring every pursuit into further relevance, and make your chosen path a key part of your overall approach to the game as a player. It is impossible to detail them all here, but professions immediately feel more consequential across the board, and it doesn’t feel like the game will have any reason to settle into a meta where only two or three professions are worth having. There are over 600 additional recipes for players to draw on, while existing recipes have been adjusted to make crafted equipment, food and other items more worthwhile. They also now tie into two other brand-new systems in WoW: Forever, campfires and Legacy Points (more on the latter later). Campfires are a fascinating new gameplay system that adds to the game from both a practical and social perspective. Essentially, they allow players to place a Basic Campfire using Cooking, and if you decide to take a seat for a while, you'll get Rested status and earn experience more quickly. Not only that, but you and up to three other players can add profession-specific items to fires to earn buffs for stats including Strength, Stamina, Intellect and Spirit. This has obvious implications for everything from endgame raiding to PvP, and it's easy to see how it's going to be a staple part of the experience for most. You can even get camps that provide workstations, repairs and vendor services, potentially saving hours of travel time on a single character. Meanwhile, Legacy Points are an additional character progression system where you receive points for hitting certain leveling milestones, progression goals, earning achievements and otherwise playing the game. Those points can then be spent on unlocking bonuses that improve your character in all sorts of ways. Even better, the points you earn are account-wide, but each character has its own independent allocation, meaning if you spend them all on one character, you will still have the full amount available on an alt. This allows you to account for the vast differences in how you'll likely build different characters, without having to grind for tens of hours again. The added bonus of the system is that it encourages a wide variety of play once you reach the level cap, exploring the world that they have clearly put a lot of effort into creating. All of this is to say that all of the major additions to the game feel as though they have been really carefully considered, and nothing has been included that doesn't offer a tangible benefit to the players' quality-of-life. It's so considered that the only real risk is that they'll struggle to maintain that standard as the update cadence gets into gear, but as starts go, it's a remarkably strong one. A Bold New Dawn Blizzard Entertainment As someone who is a fan of, and actively plays, just about every flavor of WoW going, it is clear that there are problems with the franchise as a whole that need addressing. Chiefly, the retail version of the game is about halfway through the three expansion Worldsoul Saga, and it has lost a lot of momentum since The War Within set the release down that road. At the same time, it's no secret that the original Classic servers have been slowing bleeding players, despite a refresh with the Anniversary that did provide a short-term fix. It's into that era of uncertainty that World of Warcraft: Forever enters the fray, and it therefore comes with a lot of implicit pressure to really nail down everything that the franchise is about. Happily, my time spent playing the game is convincing in its argument that it has all the ingredients to do just that, and provide players with a game that they will be able to play for years. The developer has already confirmed that they will be pursuing horizontal progression for players, and the level cap will never go above 60. That means we won't be getting any traditional expansions, and new content will be added to the game organically, in a move that players would usually expect from the likes of Old School RuneScape. It's exactly the kind of more radical thinking that WoW needs as a franchise to stay relevant after all this time, and Forever is the perfect breeding ground for those ideas. There are still a lot of questions to answer from a gameplay perspective, most notably how the late and endgame content hold up, but there's so much to like in what the game has shown so far. Crucially, it has held on to that intangible essence that made WoW so special in 2004 (and again in 2019), and if they continue to evolve that same world organically, World of Warcraft: Forever really could be an experience that goes on eternally. Systems Released November 4, 2026 Developer(s) Blizzard Publisher(s) Blizzard Multiplayer Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op Franchise Warcraft Number of Players Single-player PC Release Date November 4, 2026