Blizzard has unveiled World of Warcraft: Forever, a project that goes well beyond the Classic+ expansion the community had spent years requesting. Announced at BlizzCon 2026, the game is described as an alternate vision for the legendary MMORPG — one that senior designer Josh Greenfield and the development team are treating as effectively a World of Warcraft 2 rather than a simple add-on to WoW Classic.
The scope of the project is substantial. WoW: Forever will launch with roughly 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids, and four entirely new zones. For context, the original WoW Classic contained around 3,000 to 3,500 quests in total. The new content is not confined to the new zones; it is spread across Azeroth, including the classic starting areas and older regions such as Azshara and the Wetlands, which were notoriously light on content in the original release.
Visually, the game represents a middle ground between the WoW Classic of 2004 and the modern retail version. A refreshed user interface brings Forever closer to contemporary WoW, complete with transmogrification and modern quest-tracking features. Lighting, water, reflections, and fog have been overhauled, and players can optionally use high-definition character models taken directly from the current game. Senior art director Jeff Parrott said the goal was to make the world feel more alive and to evoke the feeling of going home. The four new zones are designed to blend seamlessly with areas that are more than two decades old, so that players may find themselves asking whether a location had always been there.
During a two-hour hands-on session at BlizzCon ahead of the closed beta on September 17, one of the new dungeons, The Drowned City, demonstrated how the team is balancing old and new. The late-level-30s to early-40s open-air troll dungeon features dramatic lighting, a colossal monster skeleton, and a massive courtyard with a central pool that showcases the upgraded water technology. Despite the visual polish, the gameplay remains true to Classic: large enemy packs require careful crowd control, positioning matters, and players still need to manage mana and food breaks between pulls. Pulling one extra group can mean near-certain death.
Class and racial changes are extensive. All nine classes receive reworked talent trees, new abilities, and new class and race combinations, including undead Paladins. The changes are significant but less radical than those seen in the 2023 Season of Discovery, which served as a testing ground for Classic+ ideas. There are no Mage healers or Warlock and Shaman tanks in Forever — at least not yet. Greenfield noted that the old adage for Classic+ has always been that asking ten different people what they want yields eleven different answers, and Forever appears to be Blizzard's attempt to satisfy as many of those visions as possible.
The closed beta begins on September 17, giving players their first broad opportunity to explore the four new zones, the nine dungeons, and the two raids. For a community that once demanded «no changes» to WoW Classic, the arrival of Forever marks a dramatic shift — one that treats the original game not as a museum piece but as a foundation for something far larger.