The rumours behind a World of Warcraft: Classic+ release have circulated since the launch of Classic itself. With World of Warcraft: Forever, Classic+ is essentially here with new classes, dungeons, and more planned for the alternate universe take on the original MMO.
As it turns out, World of Warcraft: Forever was, at one point, essentially just Classic+ with a little bit of extra content planned. “There is a version of WoW Forever that really is that version of Vanilla with just a couple slight class changes,” associate production director Clay Stone told PCGamer.
Stone explained that the point of Classic itself was to have “no changes”, although the MMO did start to introduce some minor changes as it continued to add back old content. Stone explains that this was a “wonderful testing ground for us to be able to see what the limits were” before allowing them to create new content with Season of Discovery.
In that fire, World of Warcraft: Forever was born, but it did start off as a smaller project, not something that will now have its own life and its own future. “Our original pitch internally was: We’ll do four new dungeons, and the next thing we know, we’re doing six, and the next thing we know, we’re doing nine,” Stone said.
While working on the early stages of what would become WoW Forever, Stone explained that there was an “appetite amongst the team, and much broad in Blizzard, to be able to deliver something much more substantial than perhaps even what our players were expecting”. That became the World of Warcraft: Forever that’s currently in beta, as well as the future new classes and dungeons coming in the future.
Stone knows that players “expected us to announce something much smaller”, but the premise of working within the 20-year-old world of the beloved MMO was too exciting to stop. Now, Forever is its own MMO, and the game is seeing an unprecedented amount of popularity from players even in its paid beta state.
While the advertised future of World of Warcraft: Forever has been heavily focused on dungeons and raids, Blizzard is also planning to make more improvements and changes over time. However, while some are worried that the new entry will slide into a more casual experience, like Retail, the team has been keen to note that keeping the original MMO’s friction is integral to the success of Forever.
World of Warcrraft: Forever officially launches on November 4, 2026, but you can actively play the MMO right now in paid beta. If you want to read more about the game, read about how Blizzard is trying to stomp out gold buyers manipulating the in-game economy.
