Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Forever is still in a paid beta form right now before its full release on November 4, 2026. Despite the paywall behind the beta, Blizzard has been forced to increase server caps multiple times as the pre-release MMO has been met with massive audiences.
In a discussion at PAX Australia, spotted by PCGN, World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Longdale explained that the popularity of the MMO is “insane”. While the team expected the game to have its own audience, they didn’t expect it to beat all prior Blizzard betas.
“In our recorded history at Blizzard, there’s been no beta bigger than this,” Longdale said. “I don’t think we were ready for this kind of engagement. We hoped. You always hope you get that lightning strike moment. You never expect it. Don’t do that to yourselves. But this is magic. Absolute magic.”
One of the curious bits about World of Warcraft: Forever is that fans are playing the beta exactly the same as they would play a released game. In fact, players are already engaging in gold buying, despite the fact that all beta progress will be wiped, and some are even getting banned for it as Blizzard commits to a zero tolerance stance against economy manipulation.
“People are playing it like it’s live, and we made changes, we fix stuff, [and fans say] ‘I don’t agree with that change.’ It’s a nice problem to have. We’re delighted,” Longdale continued, while explaining that the level of feedback towards WoW: Forever has far exacerbated anything the team has seen before.
With Blizzard dedicated to making sure that World of Warcraft: Forever doesn’t become diluted over time, Longdale explained that the new MMO will survive on its ability to keep its friction. “You don’t have to listen to the loudest people in the room,” she said. “You just have to accept that you’re not going to make everybody happy.”
“We have to make some calls, determine, ‘What is our game? What is it for? Who is it for?’ We have to try and walk that line as much as possible because otherwise you’ll give a lot of people a little bit, instead of a complete experience when you focus,” they said.
As World of Warcraft: Forever continues to expand in the future with new classes, dungeons, and other content, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not its popularity wanes. Fans have spent years asking for a Classic+ incarnation of WoW, but will it become more popular than the game’s retail version?
