Blizzard Officially Reveals World of Warcraft: Forever, the 'Classic Plus' Vanilla Branch, Launching November 4 With Beta This Thursday

Blizzard Entertainment officially revealed World of Warcraft: Forever at the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony, confirming the long-rumored "Classic Plus" project with a launch date of November 4, 2026 and a public beta opening this Thursday, September 17. Forever is positioned as a permanent third way to play World of Warcraft, sitting alongside Modern and Classic, and Blizzard president Johanna Faries called it "your new permanent home" and "a new beginning that never ends."

Forever is set during the first year of original World of Warcraft, with the level cap locked at 60 "for the foreseeable future." On stage, Faries placed Forever in the timeline as "essentially, year one of vanilla WoW," sitting after the fall of Lordaeron in the newly revealed Warcraft III: Reforged campaign but before Molten Core. The pitch is vanilla-first: "the world as the main character," with players carving their own path and no rush to the level cap. "It's the journey that counts, not the destination," Faries said.

At launch, Forever will add three new playable zones that fill in areas present on the vanilla map but never opened up to players, plus several overhauled existing zones, more than 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids at max level (one 10-player and one 20-player), a new Battleground called Darkspear Islands, the Skyborne elves as a new playable race with their own starting zone, and new class/race combinations that go beyond the original eight-race grid. The level cap will not be raised past 60, and Blizzard says new content will span all levels rather than only the endgame.

Forever is playable on the BlizzCon 2026 show floor now, with the public beta opening on Thursday, September 17. Pricing, how to access the beta and whether Forever requires a separate World of Warcraft subscription have not yet been confirmed by Blizzard. A "Warcraft Forever Collection" bundle combining Warcraft III: Reforged and World of Warcraft: Forever was also teased during the ceremony.

The reveal landed alongside the rest of the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony announcements, including Diablo V for Spring 2029, a Diablo animated series in development with Netflix, the new StarCraft open-world shooter targeting 2030, the Forsaken Kingdom campaign and 3.0 update for Warcraft III: Reforged (available today), the Amazon class for Diablo IV coming in 2027 and Overwatch's new vampire-themed Support hero Doctrine. Blizzard's official BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony recap and the dedicated Diablo and Warcraft newsrooms carry the studio's full announcement write-ups.