Blizzard has revealed World of Warcraft: Forever, the long-rumoured Classic Plus project, at the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony, and the vanilla-era fork will sit behind the same subscription as regular WoW, with paid upgrade packs on top starting at US$30.
Executive producer Holly Longdale described the game as “a new beginning that never ends” during the ceremony, confirming a new branch of the MMO set permanently in 2004-era vanilla with a level 60 cap “for the foreseeable future”. It launches on PC on 4 November 2026, roughly seven weeks after the reveal, with a beta starting 17 September. It lives alongside retail WoW and WoW Classic rather than replacing either.
What the subscription gets you, and what it doesn’t
Forever is covered by the existing World of Warcraft subscription, so anyone already paying for the game gets the base version. The extras cost more: upgrade packs on Battle.net start at US$30, and features including the new playable Skyborne Elves race are tied to them.
The pricing detail comes from a pre-brief ahead of the reveal, and it is US-only so far. Blizzard has not announced Australian pricing for the upgrade packs, and it has not confirmed whether the Skyborne Elves are locked entirely behind the paid packs or obtainable in the base subscription version.
Blizzard has promised more than 1,000 new quests spanning the full 1-60 level range, nine new dungeons, two new raids sized for 10-20 players, and new zones including Mount Hyjal, Zephras Isle and The Riverglades, with a new battleground on Darkspear Islands. Blizzard has confirmed three new zones, though one report says four.
A third WoW, and a familiar model
Forever becomes the third parallel version of World of Warcraft, alongside retail and Classic, and Blizzard says it will keep expanding the game from its vanilla foundation rather than moving it into The Burning Crusade. The approach mirrors Old School RuneScape, which treats its preserved 2006 version as a living game that receives new content rather than a museum piece.
“There’s no rush here. It’s the journey that counts,” Longdale said at the ceremony.
Longdale also called the project Classic Plus casually, the name fans used for years before the announcement.
Darcy Mullane covers the Australian side of the games industry for WellPlayed: local release dates and pricing, classification decisions, and the studios and events based here.
