WoW: Forever vs retail: built to feel different

Who WoW: Forever is for

Asked who Forever is for, Associate Production Director Clay Stone named four groups on the official podcast on 22 October: Classic players, since much of the team is the Classic team; players who left after 2004, Wrath or Cataclysm, or after the 2019 Classic launch; new players who know Warcraft but never played; and modern WoW players.

For the last group, Stone said the team deliberately designed an experience that does not feel like the modern game. Forever is meant to sit beside retail, something a modern player picks up when they're not running dailies or raiding. "The vibe should feel different. The pacing should feel different. The gear progression should certainly feel different."

Another developer added that the team doesn't think in terms of Classic or retail. Decisions are measured against Forever's four pillars instead: approachable and familiar, the world as the main character, the journey before the destination, and social experiences.

The differences you notice first

The level cap is 60, and it stays there. "We're keeping the level cap at level 60," Stone said. "We don't intend to go from there." New content arrives through the leveling journey and at the level cap instead, rather than in expansions that raise it.

There's no flying and no level scaling, so zones keep their danger and a normal fight takes a while. Gear grows sideways more than up, which Blizzard calls horizontal progression. Collections and transmog exist, but Stone said both were built to work differently from retail. Transmog, for one, is a toggle you can switch off entirely.

Raids for friends, not for Mythic

The biggest gap is at the top. Ion Hazzikostas told Windows Central that players who enjoy cutting-edge gameplay, Heroic or Mythic raiding and pushing keys are not who Forever is for. Its raids aim for "beer and pretzels" instead: a prepared group of friends should win.

Preparation looks different too. Senior Game Designer Josh Greenfield said modern WoW gives you a guardian elixir, a battle elixir or a flask, while in Forever you can stack many more consumables, even though no boss needs them. Guest Meeix, who works on retail esports, called comparing the two "apples to bananas".

What Forever borrows from modern WoW

Some of the modern game came along. The ping system for marking targets comes from the modern client's code, and so do text-to-speech and speech-to-text. Gamepad support was built with help from the Diablo team. The podcast's host tanks, heals and runs dungeons on a controller, and one developer heals raid play tests with one.

The infrastructure is shared too: the same Battle.net regions, and many of the same servers and tools. That's part of why North America and Europe still can't play together.

Can you play both?

Yes. Forever is included with a normal WoW subscription or Game Time, the same one retail uses. One developer pictured raiding in the modern game on a Tuesday and leveling a Forever character the next day.

Meeix had never played Classic, and came to Forever for the visuals, the cinematic and the social side. If that sounds like you, start with the leveling, not the endgame. Wowdee's add-on is built for Forever, with a free 1–60 guide to start you off.