Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Forever has seen a second increase on its internal server cap as the game’s unprecedented popularity continues to max out its player count.
Released in beta on September 17th, the new Classic+ iteration of Blizzard’s long-running MMORPG has seen tens of thousands of players rushing into its revised version of past Azeroth. (And it’s not just because of the new lighting!)
Entry into the World of Warcraft: Forever beta is not free. While the final release later this year will be playable with a basic subscription, players have to purchase the Skyborne Epic pack to enter early, which essentially costs the same as a new game at $59.99.
Nevertheless, the beta proved so popular that Blizzard had to increase the server cap the day after release as developers noted the insane draw of players. “The craziest numbers I’ve seen in 17 years working at Blizzard and almost 8 years on classic,” developer Josh Greenfield said at the time.
While player counts were expected to drop two weeks into the game’s beta as hype dissipated, player counts have only increased. As such, World of Warcraft: Forever saw server issues and population caps last weekend which Blizzard quickly fixed by allowing even more players into single servers for the second time.
“So… we had to increase the WoW: Forever Beta population cap again. The wild ride continues,” vice president of World of Warcraft Holly Longdale told fans on social media this weekend.
Of course, it’s unknown how long the popularity for this new version of Blizzard’s MMO will last, but it seems that the game is extremely popular. While the release of Classic in 2019 proved popular, the numbers behind WoW Forever have blown Blizzard’s expectations out of the water, and player counts are continuing to go up.
With that said, the game has not been without controversy. Following its announcement, many claimed that the future changes to World of Warcraft: Forever would push the game closer to the pacing of the MMO’s Retail incarnation over time, which developers have pushed back against.
“I did not spend the last year of my re-learning and mastering how to do things like we did it 20+ years ago for retail players,” World Builder Matthew Armstrong told fans. “I could have taken it easy and just kept doing things like I had done for the past 8 years on retail, because I was much more familiar with it, and it actually takes a lot less time to do.”
World of Warcraft: Forever launches fully on November 4, 2026. Raids will open on December 9th with the first major update of new content launching sometime in Spring 2027. The game will also have heavier moderation than prior games with Blizzard planning to punish gold buyers and other exploiters.
