It's a day ending in 'Y' because members of the wider World of Warcraft community are annoyed about Blizzard's decision-making. This time, it's a number of fans of the Shaman class, who feel the latest attunement in World of Warcraft: Forever undermines their beloved elemental spellcasters, with a prominent Discord server literally locking itself down in response.

The Shaman is among the classes affected by the latest patch for the World of Warcraft: Forever beta. There are various tweaks and fine-tuning ahead of today's public release, and they aren't going down well with Shaman fanatics.

Yesterday, the Classic Shaman Discord server announced it would close its doors indefinitely because of "how the developers are approaching all Shaman specs in World of Warcraft: Forever," according to a moderator announcement reposted on social media. "Community feedback gets completely ignored and class fantasies are getting destroyed," the statement continues.

"With this we intend to give them a sign and show them, that the community is not okay with how they approached our beloved class," the mod finishes.

The relationship between Blizzard and World of Warcraft players has been colorful since the MMORPG first launched. Antics like this are not unusual, and whether it yields any results is up in the air.

This move isn't going down well among other fans, either. "The WoW community has some of the most hysterical man-children in gaming," says one tweet. "As if Blizzard even cares about the class discord servers."

Another on Reddit sees the debacle as a blessing. "The more of these types of players decide not to play the game, the healthier the game will be," says a commenter. If you decided to give Forever a look, I can tell you one class to avoid, at the very least.

With World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard promises "our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality"

A frustrating aspect of any creative process is having a good idea, but not the right means to execute it. Thankfully, if you're a studio the size of Blizzard, you can transfer mechanics across series if something's good but not quite fitting into the game it was designed for, which is how a notion for Diablo 3 wound up becoming central to an encounter in World of Warcraft.

Wyatt Cheng, a former game director at Blizzard, went through what happened on his Instagram account. In 2004, he was part of the devs working on Diablo 3, and they started experimenting with what set enemies might look like, as in ones that followed the logic of wearing green equipment to get an added bonus.

"Maybe a set monster pack is four enemies with one ability each, and each monster would grant its ability to the other three upon death," he explains. "We prototyped it internally. It was not fun."

He mentions that Diablo players don't tend to pay as much attention to the creatures they're battling on-screen, always going for the fastest kill and the best loot. The transfer of abilities would frequently go unnoticed.

Then, Cheng was transferred from Blizzard North after Diablo 3 was put on ice to assist in making the then-rapidly growing World of Warcraft. He was assigned boss encounters, and one of those battles happened to involve four beefy bros players would have to face, the Anubisath Sentinels at the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. "Every single reason set monsters failed in Diablo was solved right here," he says.

To give some RNG, he made it so the Anubisath each randomly pick from a pool of eight abilities, forcing players to carefully assess each encounter. Everything fit, and Cheng learned that sometimes context is all it takes to make an idea shine.

Blizzard finally sees sense and caves to Diablo 4 players, increases Prime Evil Splinter stack size by 9900%

As World of Warcraft: Forever nears its big release tomorrow, Blizzard continues its work on the new MMO spin-off to address fans' growing feedback from the Beta – particularly when it comes to classes and their identities.

World of Warcraft has always done well to ensure every class feels unique and brings something to the table that others don't. It's the mark of a good MMO, after all, and Forever will offer no exception there.

In the latest roundup of Beta development notes from Blizzard, the developers make as much clear, explaining that "trying to hold ourselves roughly to Classic power budgets for each class" hasn't been simple.

Every new addition came "at the expense of something else," and "those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options. So over the last two weeks, we've raised damage on classes across the game, and have increased the health of higher level creatures to compensate. This additional 'headroom' has allowed us to tune things to a place that we hope feels better overall."

As for this latest round of changes, it "reflects areas where we were likely hasty in turning to Burning Crusade – or Wrath-era solutions rather than carving out new ones that better fit into the Forever combat model. Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to the groups they join, with powerful, unforgettable moments brought on by mastering them."

In Forever, in particular, "this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them."

Blizzard lists some of this "doubling down," so to speak, detailing changes to everything from the Druid (buffs and new passives, yippee) to the rogue. There's a lot, and that's putting it lightly, so I'd recommend browsing 'em all to see what your class will look like.

It won't all happen at once, either – there's more to come.

"Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data," as the devs admit. "And this is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue to evolve over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004."

That's… pretty darn big, and I'm not alone in thinking so. Over on Reddit, it's clear that fans are happy with Blizzard's news – they just hope they stick by it.

"I really hope they remember and stick to this throughout," one comment reads. "Let some classes be stronger for one raid, and then change things up for the next. As long as everyone gets their moment in the sun, I think some classes falling behind at times is a fair price for keeping things unique."

I'd agree.

Another response echoes this, calling the news "a massive W," while somebody chimes in, "They've learned. Amazing."

I suppose all that's left now is to wait and see how it all unfolds come World of Warcraft: Forever's journey post-launch.

Here's how after 22 long years, World of Warcraft: Forever has finally sold me on Blizzard's undying MMO – and now I never want to leave.

It's amazing to think that World of Warcraft has been around since 2004 yet here we are with a whole new version of the game launching imminently. World of Warcraft: Forever is shaping up to be the WoW you know and love from the original launch days but with some significant quality of life additions that make it feel much more modern and up-to-date. WoW: Forever has already been affectionately referred to as World of Warcraft Classic+ by fans thanks to this combination and it's a potent mix for long-time players. It's nostalgic while improving upon the regular format.

Having spent dozens of hours with WoW Forever and being very excited to play more, I've had plenty of time to consider the differences between WoW: Forever and traditional WoW (which is better known as Retail or Vanilla). With so many different variants of World of Warcraft out there, it's important to know what will appeal to you most. Fortunately, the same subscription covers all types of the MMO so you can always switch around and see for yourself. Here are the 8 ways in which I've found WoW: Forever to be most different from Retail.

8. There's no flying

Having your own flying mount in World of Warcraft is fantastic. It's liberating and means you can move far faster than other methods, but you see far less of the world. It can feel quite clinical simply flying between locations without taking in the journey. Even Holly Longdale, WoW executive producer & vice president, admits that "when you're flying over it, [...] it loses something". Forever has no flying mounts so exploration actually feels adventurous again. Some tweaks have been made to make things safer such as a new boat from Auberdine to Stormwind, but it still feels more mindful and epic than before. It takes a slight mental shift as you need to plan for a 10 minute journey or more, but it's much more satisfying than WoW has felt in a long time.

7. It's a smaller world (but no less exciting)

There are no expansion packs in World of Warcraft: Forever. The world is smaller yet also bigger because of the aforementioned travel changes. The many expansion packs of WoW Retail have meant everyone's spread out so you don't come across as many other players. By reducing the world size in Forever and taking out flying mounts, it actually feels bigger when you're playing. There are no more individual servers either so players simply pick a ruleset and then are placed in the same world. There are also new zones such as Mount Hyjal, Zephras Isle, and Riverglades so there are still new things to explore.

6. Every new item of gear feels huge

World of Warcraft has suffered from something known as gear creep in recent years. New gear drops rapidly with substantial stat boosts. That sounds great but, over time, it means you don't feel excited by a new item of equipment as you end up swapping them out regularly for better stuff. It all feels soulless. Wow: Forever has changed that. Like WoW Classic, better gear is relatively rare but a huge win. You'll cling onto your gear for longer which means when it drops or when you buy it, you'll feel more attached to it. At low levels, even gaining some bags is a gamechanger. It all means you have more attachment to every part of your character.

5. People actually talk and group up

Remember when MMOs required cooperation? Retail is an experience that can almost entirely be soloed which isn't really very MMOish. WoW: Forever's beta saw people team up and actually enjoy themselves again. You can still solo a lot of content, but thanks to the reduced world size and the step away from separate servers, there are players everywhere. Whether that means a bustling general chat (sometimes not so good), or simply finding people to group up with, it means you're finally no longer alone. During the beta, I had players resurrect me just because they could. It's been a nice reminder of the human side of the game.

4. It's a more cohesive experience

Forever has over 1,000 new quests and many of them link different elements of the game better than before. There are quests which guide you towards learning new professions and tradeskills, while others set you up with a bag or some simple but effective weaponry. As you level, you're more accurately encouraged to travel to new zones to level up. It all links together better than before and makes it a more welcoming and also more cohesive experience. If you're interested in Warcraft lore, the more cohesive path is particularly attractive. For newbies, it simply makes it easier to know what to do next.

3. Gaining levels is slower but more satisfying

I've managed to hit the level cap in Retail in about 10 hours. Forever is very different from that. As an efficient player, it took me about 10 hours to hit level 15 with others hitting level 20 in that time. Those timelines change depending on how you play, but it's still clear that Forever is a slower process. That's a good thing as it means you can take in more of the game and become more embroiled in this sprawling world, rather than just speedrun your way to the 'end'. It also means that later levels feel truly earned. Each 'ding' feels like a big win rather than soulless. It's all part of Forever's bid to ensure you claim ownership of your character and it's more than 'just' an avatar.

2. It's more about the journey than the destination

Forever is a calmer experience than Retail. Yes, calmer. That's not something you expect to hear about World of Warcraft, but Forever feels less about the rush to hit the level cap and more about the journey along the way. Exploration is the new focus here as well as getting to know other people. It reminds me of the old days of when WoW first launched. It's exciting and surprisingly fresh for a game you've likely played before. Even little details like the campfire that allows you to gain buffs as a group encourages you to sit and take in the world. It actually feels like a relaxing game at times.

1. There's a permanent level 60 cap

In a bold move, Blizzard has announced that Forever has a permanent level 60 cap. It won't see any expansion packs or an increase in levels. Instead, progression at the level cap will be horizontal rather than vertical which is a bold move in an industry dominated by vertical progression. For me, as a non-hardcore raider, I suspect it means I'll be enjoying the journey a lot and rolling new characters but that's not much different to how I've played over the years. Such a permanent level cap ties in well with the slower pace and the more cohesive world that means you gain genuine attachment to your character rather than simply look to the next level or gear upgrade.

Check out our best open world games, best RPGs rankings, and our games like World of Warcraft recommendations for more to play now, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for what's on the horizon!

With well over 5,000 hours clocked in Final Fantasy 14 and a good few hundred in The Elder Scrolls Online, I'm certainly no stranger to the MMO genre. I've endured many a dungeon, healed through various hardcore raids and trials, and witnessed just about all the cringe-y cat girl roleplaying one could stomach – but somehow, some way, I've not so much as touched World of Warcraft – before WoW: Forever came into the picture, that is.

For years, I resisted Azeroth's allure, as much as I yearned to take up the staff as a Night Elf and experience all the wild chaos Druid had to offer. It all boiled down to FOMO, you see… I was just four years old when World of Warcraft launched, after all, and a plethora of expansions, world changes, and updates (and, ahem, lots of missed pets and mounts I'd have liked to collect) followed, leaving me in the dust.

Or, at least, feeling like I was. I felt the same way about World of Warcraft Classic – as though I had missed a train that I simply had never been ready to board. World of Warcraft: Forever promised to remedy that, introducing me to Blizzard's genre-defining universe as it would perhaps feel if it launched today rather than in 2004 while still maintaining everything that made it such a beloved name in the MMO space in the first place.

And, it's done just that. I've happily been hooked on the WoW: Forever Beta for a month now, learning the ropes as a shameless Skyborne Druid who has never set foot in Azeroth in all her two-plus decades of gaming before… and, guys, I'm loving it so far. The janky 2000s-coded combat, the punny dialogue, the cartoonish animations, and the old-school whimsy of it all. I'm finally sold on the magic that Blizzard's boasted for decades.

It's never too late

Lore implications be damned, I'm doing it all as one of the controversial Skyborne, Blizzard's new elf race (that, yes, will set you back at least $30). Character creation is simple but charming, the sort of experience I'd expect out of an "old" roleplaying game. I choose a periwinkle-blue shade for my skin and a pale pink hair color, tweak my ridiculously luscious eyebrows a bit, and set off into Azeroth as Wisteria, my pointy-eared Druid.

And, I'm confused. Everything is new to me, and there's certainly not the amount of direction and hand-holding I'm used to as a veteran of Final Fantasy 14's Eorzea. Menus are dated, I have to mess about with the interface to get my HUD how I want it to be, and boy, is the sound loud in here. When I finish adjusting things and getting a hang of it all, however, I realize I actually sort of… like it? It scratches this weird nostalgia-induced itch I can't quite put my finger on.

Sure, I never played World of Warcraft, but I remember spending hours on my blocky white PC in Wizard101 – a magical little MMO in its own right – and somehow, WoW: Forever is sending me right back into the shoes of that enamored little girl (very) slowly casting spells over and over again. The visuals help here, too, perfectly capturing the cozy vibes of every ol' enchanting adventure game and RPG I grew up with.

As for the gameplay itself, there's a whole lot of exploring, questing, and, sigh, floating back over to my body as a defeated ghost. It's rewarding in such a simple way, though – one that manages to keep me grinding. Seeing the world alive with other players is just the cherry on top of the cake, even if you don't always get anything out of helping others out.

I enjoy partying up and tackling challenges with my pals, too, thanking the Light that quest drops are a bit more fair and evenly distributed than I've heard they were for OG players back in the day. I also don't feel overwhelmed at all by the leveling up or spell-learning, as it's spaced well enough that I'm able to get the hang of how to deal damage and heal more efficiently (the mana management is admittedly a bit brutal, though).

I'm officially locked into World of Warcraft's tight grips now thanks to Forever, with the whimsical throwback to simpler times that it offers, and I can finally say that I get it – I get why Blizzard's managed to amass such a dedicated decades-old player base, and I'm fully convinced it'll only grow come World of Warcraft: Forever's November 4 release if my experience with the Beta serves as any proof. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some post-questing junk to sell.

Check out our best open world games, best RPGs rankings, and our games like World of Warcraft recommendations for more to play now, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for what's on the horizon!

World of Warcraft: Forever is a brand new entry point to the 22-year-old, beloved MMORPG, but it skipping Xbox despite Microsoft's ownership of the studio, not to mention seamless game pad support, feels like a missed opportunity.

We raised this in a recent conversation with Blizzard for our World of Warcraft: Forever Big Preview, and the answer we got seems to strongly suggest the studio has console plans for its newest MMO. "Play it wherever you want, and at some point on whatever you want," series executive producer and VP Holly Longdale tells us. "But the first leg of that journey is getting game pad working really well with World of Warcraft. We thought Forever was the perfect place to start.

"And, you know, looking at where things are going when we hear about [Xbox] Project Helix, etc., I think platforms will be a bit more ubiquitous. I mean, honestly, we just want to be able to play it anywhere."

Longdale then points to instances of people getting World of Warcraft: Forever to run on handhelds like the ROG Ally X and even a modded Nintendo DS as proof that when she says "anywhere," she really means it.

"I think just doing some of the work on game pad is going to give players a lot of flexibility that goes beyond consoles," she says.

Of course, this messaging from Blizzard echoes Xbox's "play anywhere" program, which lets you play Xbox games on console, PC, and handheld without having to buy them separately. The big question with any Xbox-owned title, World of Warcraft: Forever included, is whether it'll eventually come to competing platforms like PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch 2, but that feels like a question for a later date as it's yet to even be confirmed for Xbox yet.

After 20 hours with World of Warcraft: Forever, I'm convinced it gives old-school fans nearly everything they could want

We set out for Azeroth in our World of Warcraft: Forever Big Preview this month, but not quite as we know it. With dev access and hands-on play, we dig into this third game that will sit besides vanilla and Classic.

I loved my dozens of hours hands-on with World of Warcraft Forever so much that I'm itching to dive into the full game. As a long term World of Warcraft veteran (a polite way of calling myself old), I've seen the game go through a lot of changes and iterations, and I'm confident WoW: Forever is shaping up to be the best new version yet. It feels good to return to something so familiar yet somehow so fresh.

Right now, World of Warcraft's community is split between the 'main' experience (also known as Retail by its players) and World of Warcraft Classic – the version for those who preferred the less cluttered earlier days of the game, and my personal favorite option. WoW: Forever is taking the nostalgia of WoW Classic with many of the quality of life additions that Retail brings, and it looks to be an incredibly compelling combination. There's a lot to love here, but I've picked out the eight things that are the true highlights of WoW: Forever and exactly why the legendary MMO is going nowhere any time soon. If you haven't played for a while and you're on the fence ahead of the game's launch on November 4, these eight factors could be exactly what swing you back in favor.

8. Crafters feel like they're playing a new game

Love to make your own equipment and items? WoW: Forever has made that so much more fun. There are a huge number of new crafted items, but they're also far more relevant again. One standout feature is being able to place campfires down and share buffs with anyone who joins you. It creates a sense of community which is something Forever is really pushing. It's actually worth taking a moment to sit down with others, shoot the breeze, and just take a moment to relax in-game. Those buffs can boost your stats making leveling afterwards simpler so it's a win-win situation.

7. It's combining nostalgia with a hefty dash of innovation

You know what the first thing I did in WoW: Forever beta was? I rolled a Night Elf Hunter and checked out Teldrassil, the opening zone for Night Elves. Something I've done over dozens of times since the original's beta in 2004. That's the beauty of Forever. You can just enjoy the nostalgia of the original while also taking in the quality of life improvements that have been much needed in recent years. Or you can roll a Skyborne character and feel like you're playing a whole new game. Variety is the spice of life, but so is comfort and feeling like you're in your happy place. Forever merges those two feelings well so you won't want to leave.

6. There are over 1,000 new quests to explore

World of Warcraft has always needed more quests. Right from the start, this was quickly realized by the development team. Fortunately, we have another 1,000 or more to try out. Some are small, some are big, all are an utter delight to see. During my time with the beta, I found a lot of the new quests bridge knowledge gaps. Some encourage you to learn trade skills or entice you into moving onto a new zone, others might kit you out with new gear which make a significant difference to your progress and leveling experience. You can feel the dots being connected properly with certain areas feeling more well rounded than before.

5. WoW: Forever servers are incredibly simple to understand

MMO veterans of all kinds know the frustration of discovering their friends are all on different servers and they have to commit to one, potentially missing out on some extra social time and definitely requiring them to pick which friends to play with. Servers have been significantly simplified with WoW: Forever. There are no more realms to pick from. Instead, you pick a rule set. Want the standard experience? Pick Normal. If you want PvP, there's a PvP server, while roleplayers can stick to the RP server. Hardcore with its permadeath mode will be added later in the game's lifespan. It's a small sounding step, but one that's just made everyone's life easier. Make sure to choose Alliance or Horde, though. That isn't changing.

4. There are new race/class combos to entice you

WoW: Forever adds a new race with the Skyborne elves packing in a huge new starting zone, but I think the more interesting addition is the new race/class combos. You can now play as an Undead Paladin or an Orc Mage. You can also roll a Human Hunter, Gnome Priest, or Dwarf Shaman. These are all much-requested combinations which expand the variety for both Horde and Alliance, and prove to be a lot of fun too. Undead Paladin is my personal highlight because it's such a quirky mix. It's another example of something about Forever which is going to mean you stick around it for a long time to come.

3. The game looks beautiful all over again

Bounced off World of Warcraft because it never looked pretty enough? That changes with WoW: Forever. It isn't the perfect visual upgrade, but there are some great improvements here. Notably, lighting, fog, and water are all far better looking than ever before. I remember when the game looked beautiful, but it's been a while. It's lovely to see Forever bring back those visual delights. Seeing shadows reflect the day and night cycle, and the water glistening is yet to get old. Zephras Isle, the Skyborne starting zone, looks particularly luscious.

2. There's a huge amount of variety for WoW fans now

There's a WoW for everyone at this point. At heart, these may all have overlapping qualities but it's fantastic value for money given one subscription pays for all modes. There's Retail, and Forever, but also Classic with its wide number of types. You can play pure Classic with its level cap of 60 (something I suspect will be now in direct competition with Forever), Classic Anniversary which unlocks expansion packs sequentially, and then there's Classic Hardcore for those who want to suffer permadeath. (I'm that person, it's me.) With Forever, there's now something for every mood which conveys the sense that WoW will never truly die.

1. It'll make you talk to people

Remember when MMOs required you to talk with strangers? And actually team up with them to achieve things? Over the years, World of Warcraft has become more antisocial. In Retail, it's very easy to hit the level cap without ever speaking to someone if you don't want to. That has benefits, but isn't really in-keeping with the MMO spirit. WoW: Forever gives you a reason to talk. It can still be soloed, so you're not dependent on others, but there's a noticeable shift towards encouraging you to converse with others, team up for more than just dungeons or raids, and actually get to know people. It's a delight to see, and something I hope will last.

Check out our best open world games, best RPGs rankings, and our games like World of Warcraft recommendations for more to play now, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for what's on the horizon!

There's a new World of Warcraft launching next week, and it's not just another expansion. World of Warcraft: Forever is a new pillar for the universe that proves why the series always remains one of the best MMORPGs in the packed genre. Returning to the culture of collaboration and connection that helped define the earliest years of the epic online RPG, it's built with innovation at its heart to make the old feel new again – new graphics, better UI, an expansion's worth of new content including nine new dungeons, two new raids, new zones, talents, and systems.

The launch is imminent, and the WoW: Forever beta has already racked up huge player numbers as lapsed fans return, vanilla players get a dose of nostalgia, and newcomers are finally tempted to experience the magic. In that wake, I caught up with Holly Longdale, executive producer & vice president for World of Warcraft, and Clay Stone, associate production director, to talk about the response to the beta, community expectations, and adding long-awaited controller support.

"There may never be another time where we're standing up on a BlizzCon stage announcing a brand new World of Warcraft and having a response like this. So, trying to take it all in, it's been amazing," says Stone. Join us below as Longdale and Stone take me through everything we need to know before the big Wow: Forever launch next week.

7. The beta was a monumental success…

Holly Longdale tells me that World of Warcraft: Forever had been under consideration for "quite some time." The community spent years asking for 'Classic Plus' and all that time Blizzard was quietly listening, gathering the data and insights it needed to turn a wild idea into a reality. Longdale says the development teams working across World of Warcraft knew that there was a "clear opportunity here", but nothing could have prepared them for such a rapturous response to the beta.

"With every single day that passed, we thought, 'OK, it'll calm down now – it'll be fine.' And then it just kept getting bigger. I'll call it a spark, but I'm not going to call it a lightning strike – just so I don't jinx anything," she laughs. "It was only a beta, but people were treating it like it's live. So we've been kind of hanging on by our fingernails to make sure that we do everything that we can to keep moving things in the right direction in preparation for launch."

Longdale adds: "This is one of those times where, when you've found a spark, you follow it through and see what lights up – and then you adjust afterwards."

6. …but Blizzard is still ready for anything come November 4

"I'm not sure we can fully predict in either direction what launch will be like. It's an interesting time, and we have our heads on a swivel!" says Longdale, speaking to whether a popular beta guarantees a successful launch. Still, multiple increases to the population cap of the beta servers (as well as a public stress test) have given Blizzard a lot of data and feedback to work with in the final days before release.

"From a live-ops management standpoint, you obviously hope that players will treat a beta like a full launch – but you don't even dream that something like that is actually possible. But our players did do that, and they've been playing it in a way that reflects that as well, which is super exciting," says Clay Stone. "Seeing the data and the response… we are just trying to take it all in as much as possible."

Blizzard is preparing final tweaks; tinkering with the balance of the 1-60 leveling journey, and trying to meet the community in the middle on controversial changes to Racial Abilities and Traits. The question now is whether it can get those servers ready for an onslaught of new players wanting to see what all the fuss is about and returning adventurers looking to recapture some of that vanilla nostalgia.

5. Forever complements the existing WoW offering

You'd think that Blizzard had seen it all through 22 years of supporting World of Warcraft, but the franchise has arrived at an unfamiliar crossroads. The WorldSoul Saga was announced in 2023, a multi-expansion effort for retail that delivered more content, faster than ever before, and is set to resolve in 2027 following the release of The Last Titan. WoW Classic reached divisive territory following the decision to push beyond Wrath of the Lich King and into Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria. And then there's Forever. Is there a risk that the playerbase could fracture?

"We don't know what's going to happen," says Clay Stone, "but we're excited to see how players move around. We expect that some players love their homes where they are, and that some players will find their way to Forever. It's going to be an interesting journey for us, for sure."

That's certainly one way of putting it, although Stone is emphatic with his belief that World of Warcraft remains flexible enough to thrive under changing tides of player behaviour and interests. "Forever is a powerful new pillar within our ongoing World of Warcraft ecosystem," he adds.

4. Year one, forever

Speaking of that ecosystem, it's good for you to understand what's available if you're thinking of returning to World of Warcraft right now. Let's start with the 'retail' experience, which Clay describes as continuing to "chart a course as [a] best-in-class modern MMO." Then there's Classic, which has seen Blizzard "revisit classic experiences as players remember them." Where, then, does Forever fit?

"We think that it'll fit perfectly within the ecosystem, alongside Classic and the modern game, by providing something for players that we are otherwise not providing. And that's this forever home in a vanilla-inspired space that'll chart its own course in the future with new content being added over time as we exist in essentially this year one of World of Warcraft, forever," says Stone. "Or at least as long as players want to go on this journey with us."

Holly Longdale adds: "We have modeled out every possible scenario we can think of about what will happen to our retail audience, what happens to our Classic audience, and what the Forever audience will be."

3. Reasons to explore again

World of Warcraft: Forever strikes a wondrous balance between celebrating the legacy of the past and innovating just enough to make the MMO feel fresh for 2026 and beyond. As someone who was there for vanilla (and who has dipped into every expansion since) it's fun to see Blizzard embrace some of the friction that was inherent to the game in its early years.

Forever is far slower and more contemplative than the contemporary version of WoW. Clay Stone says that the team has gone to great lengths to "preserve meaningful friction" wherever possible as it returns the focus to discovery, exploration, and social connection. "Players are coming in and discovering this slower-paced game, where they have to run places and party up with other players to see all the content. They are responding positively to that, so I think it speaks to this desire in players – whether they are old or new to WoW – for this style of game again."

One interesting example of this is how stripping flying mounts (first introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion) out of the game will alter your relationship with the world itself. "We say that Azeroth is the main character. And when you're flying over it, essentially bypassing the progression of content across the world itself, it loses something," says Holly Longdale, who adds that getting players back out into Azeroth and discovering its mysteries (both old and new) together is a big part of the Forever appeal. "The audience that Forever is focused on, the players who will go into the corners of the world, look behind every rock, and into every cave, we want to encourage that!"

2. Evolving a timeless world

World of Warcraft: Forever may be firmly rooted in the 2004-2006 era of the MMO's history, but there's a spirit of innovation inherent to its design that surprised me. New races and class combinations, the introduction of campsites to encourage social connection, and revamped visual fidelity are some of the highlights – although the real efforts to evolve a timeless world focused fully on how Blizzard is building beyond the content that was present in vanilla.

"Part of the design ethos for Forever, and the community's desire for 'Classic Plus', is that we never went through the Dark Portal. I'm not saying that this couldn't ever happen, but we do place these boundaries on what it is that we're building because it provides us with structure around what this game is versus what it's not," says Clay Stone. "When we think about Azeroth, and we think about all the places we haven't gone in the world, there is so much for us to play with."

Blizzard is pursuing 'horizontal-progression' in Forever. There's a fixed level 60 cap, so the focus will instead be on world and system growth. How Azeroth develops is all part of the fun. "I think there are other places in Azeroth, besides Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, that we could potentially go one day, and there's so much excitement about that," he says. "There's ways for us to build the world out – think back to the vanilla version of the continents, there's a lot of unused space that was never filled in."

1. World of Warcraft on Xbox? Gamepad support goes "beyond consoles"

One of the biggest surprises of the World of Warcraft: Forever beta was the introduction of native-support for controllers. WoW has always been designed with mouse and keyboard being the primary points of interaction with the world of Azeroth, so it was pretty surprising to discover that controller mapping not only works but is actually a pretty wonderful way to experience Warcraft. As is (it must be said) playing Forever in bed on a ROG XBOX Ally X.

Having an entire playerbase start from scratch – levelling from one to 60, together and forever – is an exceptionally rare occurrence in the realm of MMORPGs, and one that can never be repeated. So I put it to Holly Longdale: Is World of Warcraft: Forever launching as a PC-exclusive a missed opportunity?

"What you just described is really what we're after. Play it wherever you want and, at some point, on whatever you want. But the first leg of that journey is getting gamepads working really well with World of Warcraft, and we thought Forever was the perfect place to start. Looking at where things are going when we hear about Project Helix et cetera, I think platforms will be a bit more ubiquitous," says Longdale. "Honestly, we just want to be able to play it anywhere. We've seen people getting it working on the ROG Ally X…"

"Someone modded a Nintendo DS!" Stone adds.

"I think just doing some of the work we're doing on gamepad [support] is going to give players a lot of flexibility that I think goes beyond consoles," says Longdale.

There's a whole gaming world out there (some involving war). Check out our best open world games and best RPGs rankings for more to play now, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for what's on the horizon!

Although World of Warcraft: Forever is still in Beta, racial abilities and traits have been a hot topic in the WoW community since, well, forever – and Blizzard's recent update to them is no different, adding fuel to the seemingly eternal fire.

Every race has its own unique abilities, known as "racials" for short. For instance, modifiers to damage and the like. Folks are never quite happy with how they play out, though, it seems, with players on both sides expressing discontent in some way or another – but Blizzard's well aware.

That's why, as per the developer's official forums, the studio is opting to shuffle them around a bit while prioritizing "racial identity."

"Some players have expressed that some of the new racial traits feel too generic, while others have raised concerns that some are objectively stronger than others," the devs write. "In taking a final pass on these, we've prioritized racial identity, which means that some races will naturally be slightly more effective than others at certain combat roles."

And, uh, it's safe to say that this "natural" effectiveness isn't going over well with fans.

The changes, as Blizzard lists them out, affect Humans, Dwarves, Tauren, Orcs, and the Skyborne. Some of them see buffs moving from one to the other, like the Tauren losing its 1% hit chance modifier but Humans gaining it – and that's where the drama starts. Players see this as a slight against the Horde faction.

Over on Reddit, you can find them saying as much, with one comment reading, "Why even play Horde at this point?"

Another fan adds, "LMAO the bias by these devs is unbelievable. They take 1% hit away from Tauren and give it to Dwarves. What a joke." Right underneath, somebody else says, "Blizzard has no idea what they are doing with these racials" – and I see a good few replies echoing this sentiment.

It's not just there, either. A different thread sums up the entire issue as a "favoritism" problem from the World of Warcraft studio. "Racials are NOT fine," it reads. "The favoritism towards alliance is getting ridiculous…"

It's important to note that not everyone agrees here, however. I see plenty of people arguing that this isn't a matter of "favoritism" but rather what Blizzard itself explains – that some races are more well-equipped for certain forms of combat and the like. As one player puts it, "Alliance has always been the better PvE side," while the Horde is superior in PvP.

Others simply state that they feel it's fair as this is "how Alliance felt for 20 years," clapping back that Blizzard previously favored the Horde.

Honestly, my head hurts just reading back and forth between the discussions, but I understand both sides. It's tough to strike a proper balance that'll please everyone, though. I'm happy with what Final Fantasy 14 did… you know, making the racial buffs and whatnot essentially obsolete.

I doubt that'll ever happen in World of Warcraft, of course, but it'll be interesting to see how this conversation develops as WoW: Forever releases into the wild early next month – and how Blizzard chooses to react in regards to updates, too.

Despite controversy, World of Warcraft: Forever's $30 Skyborne race is one of the Beta's most popular among both Horde and Alliance players

After weeks of outcry, Blizzard has seemingly caved to pressure from the ever-vocal Diablo 4 community and increased stacking on Prime Evil Splinters from 1, which means no stacking, all the way up to 99, a 9900% increase. That's not just a compromise, that's a full-blown reversal seemingly based on feedback from the players.

"WE GOT A SPLINTER STACK SIZE INCREASE," reads an excited Reddit post featuring a screenshot from the latest Diablo 4 patch notes, which confirm, "The stack size for Prime Evil Splinters increased from 1 to 99" starting October 28. Unfortunately, the reaction at least on the Diablo 4 subreddit hasn't been as positive as Blizzard is probably hoping. In fact, the vast majority of comments, including those with the most upvotes, are from players who feel the change is too late, if not too little.

"Nice. Wait until the bulk of the playerbase has given up in disgust," reads the top comment on the post. I very much doubt "the bulk of the playerbase" has really given up on Diablo 4 because of this, and in fact I'd argue the majority of players don't give a damn about stackable Splinters, but it seems the subreddit is in agreement that it simply took Blizzard too long to make this change.

Season 15 has been out for a few weeks now, and this whole time the seasonal Prime Evil Splinters you use to grant yourself Prime Evil powers have been locked to one per inventory, meaning you could only have one of each type on you at any given time. Diablo 4's endgame grinders hated that so much that they came up with an incredibly fussy and demanding workaround, but now Blizzard has made that technique obsolete by letting you stack up to 99 of the suckers, which seems excessive to me.

Regardless, Diablo 4 players aren't letting Blizzard off the hook for this one.

"Too fuckin late," says another disgruntled denizen of Sanctuary.

"I’m good. Too little too late!" says another, and so on...

Although unstackable Splinters have been seen as a season 15 bug by many, I'm convinced Blizzard was being very intentional when it limited players to just one per type. The wording in the new patch notes to me suggests a reversal rather than a bug fix, which makes this yet another example of Blizzard's willingness to make significant design changes in response to feedback from players.

Diablo 4 PTR 3.3.0 confirms Season 16 is "carrying forward" some features by popular demand, and Blizzard is taking Druids back to school to address broken tags

The new Diablo 4 PTR period is right around the corner, and Blizzard's revealed what changes players can tinker with ahead of the full update. The druid class is receiving some significant tweaks, war plans are getting deeper and more intricate, and more.

"Some features from the Season of Hell's Legacy will be carrying forward into Season 16," the introduction says. "However, these will not be part of this PTR, as we want to focus on new features for testing."

The notes from the devs start with what's happening to war plans, and it's a good place to kick off. Firstly, there's a new progression system specifically for the endgame quests. Conveniently called War Plans Tactics, the notion is to make the missions you do and what you get out of them more specific.

"Earn points from completing War Plans activities, then invest these points into nodes to increase the chance of preferred activities or rewards appearing," the official description reads. "This allows you to tailor your War Plans more closely with both your goals and playstyle."

You can add up to three points into any given selection, which will increase the odds of it coming up for you as a potential choice, and you can do the same for the type of reward you'll get. On top of this, Marks of Wisdom, a currency for war plans, is being introduced.

These are what allow you to change nodes across your war plans and tactics skill trees. It's mentioned they're capped at 20, but I don't know if that's the amount you can carry or have in use - one to clarify once you're in the public test realm.

The druid rework is pretty hefty, and according to the dev team, it's based around two guiding principles. First, prevent druids from stacking tags as much, and second, to give resolve and fortify more pep in their step as builds.

They go about the former by removing Nature Shift and Shapeshifting tags from skill upgrades. Instead, either will simply be tied to the base ability, and if one or other was part of the tags on an ability, it'll now be removed.

The second is achieved more roundly through changes across how druids are built up. There's a lot to go through in terms of what Blizzard's changing, and I'd expect a lot of experimentation when this PTR arrives. It kicks off on October 27, and runs until November 3.

Diablo 4 players rally for a homebrew fix to a huge season 15 annoyance, but you'll need at least one very good friend

The Splinters of Evil are some of Diablo 4 season 15's rarest drops, but once you get your hands on a specific type – Hatred, Terror, or Destruction – that's all you can hold of that type at once. Blizzard seems to have intentionally designed this specific seasonal drop to not stack, meaning you can only have one splinter of each type in your inventory at once. That might seem like a pretty niche problem applicable only to endgame players in the highest Torment tiers, and it is, but for those players it's a major issue precisely because splinters are so rare. Imagine having to walk away from one of the game's rarest drops simply because you already have one in your inventory, and then you can understand why endgame grinders have rallied for a homebrew solution, and found one.

As detailed in a new video from prolific Diablo creator Rob2628, there's a fairly simple – but tedious – workaround you can do if you really want duplicate splinters in your inventory. As Rob2628 points out, you'll need at least one friend who's leveled enough in Diablo 4 to access Torment tier 10 where you can farm Splinters of Evil from Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal.

Once you've successfully bribed your buddy with delivery pizza – ideally the good stuff from your local Italian joint and not just some fast-food slop – you'll need to invite them to your party once you've got your duplicate splinter to drop. Next, have them hang out near the splinter while you switch to another character that doesn't already have that same splinter in its inventory, and then have your friend invite your alt to the server with the dupe so that you can pick it up.

In Rob2628's words, your friend is essentially "holding the instance" so that the duplicate item doesn't despawn when you log out as your primary character, which makes it very important that they decline the prompt to return to their own world.

I haven't tested this trick out myself yet, and frankly I wouldn't be able to because I only have one character that can get into Torment 10, but I see no reason it wouldn't work. It's just bound by so many limitations and requirements tied to other players that I'd be much more likely to just close the game and play something else. Rob2628 adds in his video, "many of you don't have friends" anyway.

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

Diablo 4's deeply nostalgic season 15 is loaded with all sorts of neat references to the series' history, including a whole quest recreating OG Diablo's critical path and an entire armor set themed around the notoriously elusive cow level first introduced in Diablo 2. Players were pretty quick to find out how to get all of the pieces of the Bovine armor set except one: the gloves, or the Foreshanks, sending the community into a weeks-long treasure hunt that, until now, has come up empty. As it turns out, the Bovine Foreshanks simply hadn't been added into the game until now. See, there's a cow you have to pet to get the gloves, and that cow didn't exist until patch 3.2.3 went live this week.

As reported by Icy Veins and independently verified by me, the newest version of Diablo 4 adds a cow that spawns in Old Tristram behind the Cathedral. All you have to do is pet the cow and it'll drop the Foreshanks of the Bovine. It's really as simple as that. Diablo 4 players have been tearing apart season 15 looking for the missing piece of the cow armor set for weeks, and Blizzard just casually snuck it into a patch with no mention of it in the patch notes. That's, uh, that's gotta sting a little.

On the bright side, Diablo 4's tireless loot chasers can finally acquire the full set, with this handy guide from Auscraft detailing exactly where to track down each piece. Now, depending on how you like to transmog your Diablo 4 character, you might find the Bovine set utterly repulsive or extremely cool. Personally, I'm a huge fan. It's disgusting, and I don't know how else Blizzard could've paid tribute to such a beloved part of Diablo history other than going full camp and making the armor look like an actual live cow grazing the fields of Old Tristram. I'll let you be the judge:

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

We know development on Diablo 5 is well underway, since the sequel was announced at this year's BlizzCon with a snazzy trailer. How far along is another question, since no gameplay was shown; however, production on the action-RPG's cinematics is now in motion.

We know this thanks to Neil David Carter, the cinematics director for the Diablo series at Blizzard. He posted an image on Twitter of an empty soundstage, ready for production crew and actors to start putting scenes together.

"First shoot Diablo 5," he says in the caption. Nothing else is said, but he wouldn't be at liberty to discuss any of the finer details right now. And I imagine a lot of material will still be in flux, too.

This is day one of filming, aspects of the script will almost certainly still be up in the air. Things can change quickly, scenes can be shot that are either changed later or scrapped entirely. These things happen on TV and film productions all the time, and this is a medium where the cinematics are more dependent on what makes the cut for the released product.

Right now, Diablo 5 is eying a 2029 release window, leaving some time for the devs to sculpt the next installment of the beloved series. But it could easily be delayed, and, in fact, Chris Wilson, a central designer on fellow ARPG Path of Exile, believes we could be waiting until 2030 or beyond for the fifth Diablo to arrive.

Plenty of time and space for the cinematics to require another go. I'm curious about who they might get to star in these scenes. MCU actor Simu Liu did an advert for Diablo 2: Resurrected, and they've had the likes of Debra Wilson and Ralph Ineson perform various roles in recent games.

Those would all be worthy additions to this iteration. It's all go at Blizzard HQ, anyway. We'll be back in Sanctuary before we know it.

Diablo 4 update fixes problem preventing players from completing the Season 15 questline properly - but there's still no splinter stacking

World of Warcraft: Forever hasn't come without its controversies, with the most notable of all perhaps surrounding the new Skyborne race – but the Beta proves it's not that unpopular.

The WoW: Forever Beta has been underway for nearly a month now, giving fan-led projects like Classic.io, which collects player data from the game, a chance to bloom.

So, what do the numbers on the site tell us so far, then? Well, perhaps most interestingly, the Skyborne aren't even the least popular race. In fact, the Alliance-aligned Skyborne are the fourth most popular race, with their Horde-aligned counterpart following close behind.

They've got the Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Tauren, and Trolls beat, too. The only races ahead of them are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Undead, Humans, and Orcs, with the Skyborne making up nearly 20% of all World of Warcraft: Forever players.

Heck, Skyborne Druids also make up the fourth most chosen race and class combination in the game, and folks have had some less than positive thoughts about that combo to say the least.

Blizzard actually had to step in recently and promise to make World of Warcraft: Forever's Skyborne less "jarring" to look at, specifically mentioning Druid animations in its statement. So, yeah – the stats are a bit mind-boggling, as they don't line up with all the controversy.

I suppose it's not too surprising, though, when you consider the fact that the same $30 that grants you access to the WoW: Forever Beta comes with the Skyborne included.

I'm happy with the periwinkle-skinned elf race myself (the pink hair goes hard, y'all), and I doubt Blizzard regrets its introduction, either.

Senior game designer Josh Greenfield said the team always "knew we wanted to add some sort of elves" and the Skyborne had apparently stemmed from veteran Chris Metzen himself – so, there you go. They're here to stay and it doesn't seem the community is all that broken up about it, honestly.

I am, however, disappointed to see Night Elves so low down. If it were up to me, we'd all be donning some sort of elf character – lore be damned.

World of Warcraft: Forever aims to "aggressively shut down the flow of suspicious gold" – but Blizzard warns there "may be false positives" at first

On the journey to the big World of Warcraft: Forever release next month, Blizzard has been working hard on social media advertisements for the new MMO – advertisements it assures fans do not contain any generative AI content.

The company's digital marketing manager confirms as much on X, explaining that they've seen some of the controversy the WoW: Forever ads have sparked online, with allegations of gen AI use – but it's all unfounded.

"Not seeing much discourse here on X, but there have been comments on whether or not we use AI in these videos," they write. "That's a big hell nah." Why would they, when they have real creatives at hand?

As they put it, "We have real team members writing scripts, getting and editing footage, and I've been in recording booths with our VO actors every week."

They're not alone in assuring the community of it, either. World of Warcraft's social media manager chimes in with his own post, stating, "To add, we don't use AI on ANY social content we make. Big hell nah indeed." And, honestly, that's great news, to say the least.

It's a bit of a strange time right now in the game development scene and elsewhere, with many suddenly announcing their support of gen AI amid widespread layoffs.

Epic Games immediately springs to mind, having unveiled a new "vibe coded" version of its launcher just yesterday while company CEO Tim Sweeney spoke on a "huge pivot" at the studio toward "maximum AI acceleration" – so, yeah.

I, for one, am pleased to learn that other developers and publishers – like Blizzard here – are shying away from the controversial tech and opting to support their own creative staff, even if it's for something as simple as social media advertisements.

World of Warcraft: Forever aims to "aggressively shut down the flow of suspicious gold" – but Blizzard warns there "may be false positives" at first

As it turns out, there was a bug in Diablo 4 Season 15 that prevented players from finishing the main questline. Mercifully, the issue has been rectified in the latest patch, though there are other problems players hope Blizzard will look into.

The topline change in the update focuses on players getting access to a Splinter of Prime Evil before they're supposed to. Doing so stops you from finishing the central quest, because the Prime Evil powers are meant to be part of your reward.

The glitch has apparently been rectified, but anyone who's already gotten it will need to use Blizzard's workaround to sort out their character, since quest progress isn't affected. "This change prevents this bug from happening but does not reset quest progress on characters who are already bugged," reads a developer's note.

"To allow affected characters access to Prime Evil Powers, create a new character in the same partition (Normal/Hardcore and Normal/SSF) and complete the seasonal questline," the post continues. "This unlocks Prime Evil Powers for all characters in that partition."

Not ideal, but at least there's a fix of some description. Another bugbear where four affixes couldn't be rerolled using the Horadric Cube has been remedied as well - sadly, the wasted resources can't be returned, but at least it's sorted.

While these are certainly helpful alterations, they don't stack splinters, a mechanic players have been requesting for several weeks now. "Splinters not stacking is truly the dumbest decision of the season," writes one Redditor, summing up a theme across the comments responding to this update.

We'll see if Blizzard decides to address that problem in the coming weeks. For now, at least you can definitely complete the current questline without extra hassle.

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

Although World of Warcraft: Forever is still only available to play via its Beta – a Beta which won't see any player progress carry over to Blizzard's full release, mind you – it's not enough to deter folks from purchasing in-game gold with real money.

You know, real money trading. If you've played any MMO at all, whether that be retail World of Warcraft or something like Final Fantasy 14, you know it's a problem. And even though it doesn't really make sense financially, the WoW: Forever Beta offers no exception.

A little while ago, Blizzard took $200 in gold from a streamer after suspicions of real-money trading. Shortly after, an add-on targeting gold purchases made rounds.

In other words, it's an ongoing issue, "Beta" be damned – and the community has looked to Blizzard for a harsher crackdown against it… Something the developers are evidently aware of.

A new update from the studio proves as much, with Blizzard outlining measures it's currently implementing to counter real-money trading before it really takes off in-game, as part of its "latest weapon" against illicit gold purchases.

"If your account is suspected of being involved in RMT, either the selling or receiving of illicit gains, you may find your account subject to a Temporary Economy Hold," the post reads. "You will have restricted use of trade, mail, guild banks and the Auction House while this economic hold is in place."

It sounds just like the tough crackdown the doctor ordered, honestly – and Blizzard doesn't seem to be playing around.

"Our aim with this new system is to aggressively shut down the flow of suspicious gold before it has been transferred or put into circulation into the economy, while providing us the time needed to investigate more thoroughly," the dev explains. "If you are just playing the game normally, it is unlikely you will ever see this restriction applied to your account."

And, if you do see it, things will progress in one of two ways.

"If this restriction is applied to your account, it will be either automatically removed when the actions that triggered it have been investigated and found false, or you will receive account actions if found to have been involved in RMT," as Blizzard says… but it might not be 100% clean at first.

"This system is new. There may be false positives while things are fine-tuned," the studio admits – but you don't need to worry too much.

That's because "merely having a Temporary Economy Hold will leave no permanent strikes against your account unless also later proven to be RMT motivated."

It's not such a bad deal, in my opinion – but I'd also never engage in real money trading, especially during a beta, so my take makes sense, I suppose. I'm just happy to see Blizzard taking further action against those who are, even if it'll include wrinkles that need ironing out.

Blizzard is "committed to ensure that WoW: Forever is not marred by the Real Money Trade" – and that's not all, either. "All of these systems will also be deployed to all versions of World of Warcraft if proven successful" – Forever, retail, Classic, you name it.

As Blizzard launches yet another version of World of Warcraft, lead says "our hope is to grow the audience, not to fracture it"

World of Warcraft: Forever is the third mainline World of Warcraft MMO Blizzard's bringing to the table to stand alongside retail and Classic – but the developers aren't trying to cause a rift in their community with yet another version of the game.

In fact, they actually want to draw more players into Azeroth's welcoming hands, as game director Ion Hazzikostas tells PC Gamer in a new magazine interview.

"Our belief is that Forever will offer something that appeals to a lot of folks who maybe aren't currently well-served by what they see from WoW," he explains – and that lines up nicely with what Blizzard's been saying, honestly. World of Warcraft: Forever is for fresh faces and old fans.

"Maybe modern Wow isn't quite their speed, and when they look at Classic, they played that game already, or it's a little bit too janky and too 2004," he continues. World builder Matthew Armstrong said similar before, that WoW: Forever is "for the millions of people who have had their accounts lapse" in Classic – that plus newcomers, of course.

Blizzard wants to reach more fans across the board, and Hazzikostas assures the community of this. "Our hope is to grow the audience, not to fracture it," he states. And "it's not something we take lightly."

This isn't the devs' first go at revamping World of Warcraft, after all, considering Classic. "For years now we've had two distinct flavors of the game, with different paces to them, and they've appealed to large but distinct audiences," as the lead puts it.

We've got retail and, of course, Classic. Soon, we'll have three.

Much like with Classic, WoW: Forever will hopefully bring people who've never touched a WoW game in their life to the MMO universe, Hazzikostas says – and, you know what, I'd argue it already has.

I'd never been willing to dive into World of Warcraft prior to the new Beta myself, having suffered from some serious FOMO. Now, I'm all in, and I doubt I'll be any sort of exception to the standard.

Here's hoping World of Warcraft: Forever indeed doesn't "fracture" the community. Senior game designer Josh Greenfield said he's witnessing "the craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard" however, so I've got a good feeling.

World of Warcraft: Forever may take us to Northrend and Pandaria one day as "Azeroth is a big place," Blizzard teases, even if it's all about the first year of the MMO for now

Now that the World of Warcraft: Forever beta is in full swing and Blizzard's public release is quickly approaching, it comes as no surprise that fans are wondering where the MMO might take us in Azeroth – and the possibilities sound endless.

Speaking to Holly Longdale, executive producer and vice president for World of Warcraft, and associate production director Clay Stone, content creator JackedIQ learns more about what Blizzard has in store for us regarding zones and the like – you know, whether we'll ever see Northrend or Pandaria – and the developers' answers are exciting, to say the least.

"I mean," Longdale says first, "broadly speaking, nothing is off the table." And, yes, she means nothing.

"It's more what the team decides to do, where they want the narrative to grow." Much of this will come from what Blizzard gathers from us as players, but "another piece of this is the original continents too can change in and of themselves."

As the lead puts it, "You could spend a lifetime in the two continents as they evolve." However, once again, she reiterates that "everything is on the table at this point."

As it stands, Blizzard is simply focused on "the best story to tell," which does mean "there's plenty of opportunity." Longdale jokingly concludes, "We just wanted to see if anyone was going to play it first."

Considering how well the beta is going – so well, in fact, that senior game designer Josh Greenfield said he's witnessing "the craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard" – I'd argue we can hold our breath.

Stone echoes Longdale's teases, too, adding, "Azeroth is a big place – and this time period that we get to play with is a really cool time period, basically staying in that first year of World of Warcraft…"

And, with all of the available lore, "there's some really cool creative ideas that the team has for how we can play in that space." Stone repeats that "Azeroth is a big place," perhaps filling me with too much hope now.

All in all, though, I'd wager we'll see a lot more of Azeroth than we may have initially gone into Forever thinking we'd see, and I'm thrilled to hear it. How will Blizzard pull it off while remaining faithful to its 2004 MMO? Well, that's for time to tell… not us.

World of Warcraft: Forever patch notes leave fans asking Blizzard "why" and hoping for more class adjustments.

A new patch for the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta is upon us, bringing everything from the new City of Dalaran dungeon to various class changes – but it's not exactly landing well with all of the MMO's early players, it seems.

The World of Warcraft: Forever patch notes outline a lot, and that's a bit of an understatement – we're entering the fourth week of the Beta, after all.

You'll find them over on Blizzard's official forums, beginning with bug fixes and leading into a plethora of class changes which are, unsurprisingly, stirring quite the storm in the community. The first point of contention has to do with looting, however.

As the WoW: Forever patch notes read, "This build reintroduces Classic looting behavior, where creatures that dropped no loot can still be interacted with." In other words, enemies are now professional time wasters as you can interact with them whether or not they have loot.

To say the least, it's pretty annoying – and I'm not alone in thinking so. Over on a Reddit thread on Patch 5.01, one person simply asks, "Why?"

They continue: "I mean, what purpose does this have beyond 'it's how it was?' Is it just masochism from thinking you got a quest item?"

Honestly, I get it. It's already confusing folks, too, with another commenter saying, "I found it mildly annoying/confusing at first when I killed a mob and I couldn't loot it. Took me a bit to realize what was going on." Perhaps this is one thing they should've axed from the original game.

Players are also unhappy with the new World of Warcraft: Forever class changes – and lack thereof. It's looking especially rough for Rogue fans specifically, with one reply joking, "Sick Rogue changes" (spoiler alert: there are none).

Caster classes like the Druid, Priest, and Shaman do see tweaks – but they're apparently, uh, not the greatest. "They're committed to making casters feel bad at low levels," as one fan amusingly puts it.

For example, Blizzard has adjusted the Shaman's Lightning Bolt and its "base points and points per level of ranks 1-5" so as "to make the growth rate of ranks 1-6 more consistent, and new ranks always an upgrade" – but it feels like a non-change.

As one fan writes, there are "0 meaningful changes" in reality. All in all, it feels like the developers opted to nerf lower, currently preferable ranked skills than "making the higher ranks better."

It's worth a browse through the full World of Warcraft: Forever patch notes to see it all for yourself if you're interested, but something tells me Blizzard might be delivering even more changes following fan feedback soon.

World of Warcraft: Forever is "simplifying" Blizzard's usual PvP but also adding a controversial weekly grind as MMO fans beg "please don't do the weeklies thing."

Now that the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta is entering its fourth week, Blizzard's got some new content in store for us – like the exciting new City of Dalaran dungeon.

Yes, that's right… we're finally heading to Dalaran, and we'll get to test a new dungeon, too – one that's already managing to stir up some chaos, it appears.

If you're familiar with World of Warcraft, then you likely know that Dalaran belongs to the Alliance and not the Horde. Well, it seems that the latter is somehow able to enter the city regardless after the dungeon's introduction to WoW: Forever, as per Wowhead.

Apparently, Horde players just need to complete the City of Dalaran, accompanying dungeon quest "Heart of Disruption," and get the Dalaran Sewer Key – the item that grants us entry to Dalaran. It's at that point that folks are then tasked with bringing the loot they got from the dungeon into Dalaran, in fact, through a new quest titled "Shrewd Negotiations."

Whether you're Alliance or Horde, you'll be safe in the city following this sequence.

All of the guards that should be hostile will act neutral toward you, should you be a Horde player, and offer safe passage (as long as you defeat the Archmage in the City of Dalaran and so on, so forth).

What's more, you can freely explore the city after completing everything, much like an Alliance player – but although you can stock up on supplies, you won't be able to access every NPC's services, apparently.

As Wowhead amusingly points out though, you can fish for coins in the Dalaran fountain – heck yeah. Not everyone is pleased with the Horde being in Dalaran, however.

Over on Reddit, players find it so mind-boggling they say it's "probably just a bug." Others argue that, as it's tied to a quest, it "doesn't sound like a bug." Nonetheless, it's stirring up some lore-related discussions, which aren't exactly new to World of Warcraft: Forever.

There's the whole controversy surrounding the new Skyborne race, from its $30 price tag to its lore implications, and the fact that Blizzard has just revealed it's changing the elves to better fit the rest of the MMO, for example.

It's never easy dealing with source material that's this old and beloved, I suppose, but I do think Blizzard's well aware of this and how fans feel about the legendary 2004 game that started it all.

World of Warcraft: Forever is "simplifying" Blizzard's usual PvP but also adding a controversial weekly grind as MMO fans beg "please don't do the weeklies thing."

World of Warcraft: Forever won't be emulating the retail or Classic versions of Blizzard's beloved MMO when it comes to PvP – it's got its own way of approaching it.

The studio outlines as much in a new post about how PvP works in WoW: Forever over on its official website, and it's somehow easier than it was back in the early 2000s but also… a tad grindy?

Blizzard first describes it bringing "a refreshed sense of purpose to every match-up" with an approach that "gives players more reasons to take part throughout the season while preserving the spirit of competition that defined PvP in the original World of Warcraft."

The developers explain that they "wanted to keep the design pillar of 'Approachable and Familiar' firmly in view: simplifying the original Honor System while staying true to its roots" – so, how does it work?

Well, there are two parts to World of Warcraft: Forever PvP: Honor and Rank Points. Honor is a form of currency you earn by taking part in PvP content, with Blizzard promising to ensure that "acquisition rates are more consistent across the board."

You gain Rank Points from specific PvP activities, like battlegrounds and certain quests. This system is similar to the original World of Warcraft's own, as you'll be working toward titles like Grand Marshal or High Warlord (depending on which faction you've chosen, of course).

There's a catch, however: "Ranks have a weekly cap, retaining the foundation of the original system while making the journey more accessible." That makes it easier, sure, but it also feeds into a weekly grind – and as a Final Fantasy 14 player myself, I'm all too familiar with (and not really a fan of) weekly grinds.

There are more layers to this, too, with Blizzard going on to detail how seasons function: "During a PvP season, players can progress through the ranks and earn Honor. Each season also includes a journey with weekly tasks to complete." Sigh. Yes, weekly.

"Successfully completing those tasks grants Honor and Rank Points, and three tasks each season also grant a Legacy Point," the devs continue. "Completing these tasks is part of the seasonal journey, and because they are tied to the Legacy System, they remain available to complete in future seasons."

In other words, it's definitely a bit simpler to get where you want in PvP rank-wise, but I'll feel more inclined to be consistent. You know, whether I want to be or not – and I'm evidently not alone.

A comment sees a fan saying, "Please don't do the weeklies thing." Another adds, "One of the things I'm trying to avoid is weekly checkboxes I feel I need to hit. Just having X item cost Y Honor and Z rank is enough." A separate response reads, "Please don't do that system. It's unhealthy at all. Having to farm every freaking week without taking any break is not fun."

Overall, though, it's admittedly certainly an accessible PvP system. Blizzard seems to know it as well, concluding, "With more ways to make progress each week and meaningful goals to pursue throughout the season, PvP in World of Warcraft: Forever gives players a clear path to jump in, compete, and keep building toward what comes next."

Fingers crossed it all plays out smoothly come the MMO's November 4 release.

To make World of Warcraft: Forever's controversial Skyborne less "jarring" to look at, Blizzard is going back to 2004

Since Blizzard first unveiled World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026 last month, one thing has been weighing particularly heavily on fans' minds about the revamped MMO: the Skyborne race.

It's hard to deny the controversy surrounding the new Skyborne race, from its $30 price tag to its lore implications, but Blizzard doesn't seem to necessarily agree with fans critical of the blue-skinned elves.

In fact, senior game designer Josh Greenfield said the team always "knew we wanted to add some sort of elves" and the Skyborne had apparently stemmed from veteran Chris Metzen himself.

That doesn't mean Blizzard isn't open to any change at all, however.

As it stands, folks can opt for HD or SD player models in WoW: Forever. Put simply, HD is a "newer" style, while SD provides that old beloved 2004 look. The Skyborne don't have that option in the Beta right now, though – but that'll change.

Blizzard reveals as much in a new update on its official website, explaining that the developers "focused on the pre-existing races from original World of Warcraft" first, regarding the SD and HD toggle.

That's because, you know, "many people have an attachment to those models." The studio is aware that it leaves the Skyborne looking a bit… different.

"We have heard feedback that the HD Skyborne can be jarring by contrast when placed in the same world as the SD models and world, and we agree."

The solution? "Skyborne player characters (and yes SD Druid forms) are in development and arriving early 2027." Attached is an in-progress image of models.

So, the SD Skyborne won't be available when World of Warcraft: Forever fully releases on November 4, but they're coming.

Is it enough for disgruntled fans, though? Well… is it ever? Comments show that plenty of players are still, erm, displeased, to say the least, with some asking Blizzard to just "please remove Skyborne druid" altogether – which is a tad extreme, if you ask me. There is some positivity among the replies, thankfully, however.

I'm of the (evidently unpopular) belief that the Skyborne are stunning, and have their place in WoW: Forever, so I'm thrilled. And, you know what? A huge chunk of the Beta players I see myself are playing as the race, so take that as you will.

WoW Forever player beats Blizzard to the punch, builds add-on that catches real-money trading on the spot

As notorious Overwatch hero Sombra makes her support class debut in Season 5: A Grim Doctrine, Blizzard is well aware that the former DPS losing her Hack ability is going to leave some players "upset," but insists the change is "better for the game."

Sombra's big support rework was announced last month, and basically comes in an attempt to make her less annoying for both her foes and allies. As you'd imagine, the rework means big changes to her abilities and perks. She's now got a new ability called Cyberspace, for example, replacing her damage-over-time Virus ability with a new projectile that weakens foes and heals allies.

Perhaps most notably, though, Sombra's Hack ability has been replaced by Hotfix. Rather than being able to mess with opponents by temporarily removing their abilities from them, it instead can be used to heal allies over time.

It's certainly a choice considering that Sombra's whole shtick is that she's a hacker – especially after game director Aaron Keller previously said that the rework wouldn't change "her identity" – and the devs are obviously aware that not everyone is a fan.

"We've seen a lot of reception about the Sombra rework, and one of the things people have talked about is the hacker losing hack," senior hero designer Leo Robles Gonzalez admits in a new dev livestream.

Robles Gonzalez reveals that Blizzard "tried a lot of different versions of Sombra where she still could hack enemies," but regardless, even with her lower damage output "there was always that feeling of Sombra appearing out of nowhere, turning off my abilities, and then outputting damage that I can't really do anything about."

Now though, the devs are hoping that they've successfully produced "the last rework" of the notorious hero, adds hero designer Scott Kennedy, and while "obviously players are going to be upset that they lost this hacking enemies version," the team reckons that "this overall is going to be better for the game and players will really learn to love and enjoy her."

It's not that her hacking abilities are totally missing, either. Hotfix is still able to hack health packs and deployable objects like Torbjörn's turrets and Ashe's B.O.B., and human enemies can be hacked when she uses her ult, EMP.

Even so, these changes are definitely going to take some getting used to for the veteran Sombra players. As a support main, though, I'm excited to give the new version of the not-quite-as-hacky hacker a go.

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Overwatch's resurgence reportedly drove Blizzard to its "first back-to-back years of growth" in almost 10 years.

As Blizzard continues to flesh its PC storefront Battle.net out with the likes of The Witcher 3, Xbox CEO and executive vice president Asha Sharma doubles down on what the World of Warcraft studio has said before – it's not trying to create another Steam.

Yes, Blizzard partnered with CD Projekt Red to see The Witcher 3 make its way onto its own storefront – but that doesn't mean Battle.net will continue to accept just any game willy-nilly, or that it's a one-to-one Steam competitor.

Andrew Guerrero, Blizzard's vice president of product management and global insight, confirmed as much last month, saying the company isn't "trying to do the Steam or Epic Games Store thing."

He said Blizzard already has its "audience," a "passionate core of people that play Blizzard games and games similar to Blizzard," assuring that they'd only "get after" titles for Battle.net should they make sense for that core.

Sharma is now saying the same herself, telling Xbox in an internal town hall (as per Windows Central) that Battle.net will grow, and is actually nearly retaining as many users as Steam already – but it'll never be Steam.

She hints that it'll instead be a more selective, curated storefront than platforms like Steam or even Microsoft's Xbox PC. Sharma also teases that the partnership bringing with CD Projekt Red bringing games like The Witcher 3 to Battle.net will grow, too, although carefully.

In her words, "We will do it the right way for those communities." So, there's clearly a sense of executives taking utmost care with the whole situation.

As it stands now, Battle.net really isn't anything like Steam, anyway. It's primarily a home for Blizzard's own lineup of games, from World of Warcraft to Diablo 4 and the like.

Sure, there are other partner titles, like Call of Duty entries and Xbox Game Studios gems such as Avowed and Sea of Thieves, but it truly is a more particular store than its competitors.

How will that work out in the long run? Well, I suppose only time will tell.

Xbox Helix is seemingly pulling a Steam Deck, CEO discusses devices for players "on the go" with "a great console first"

The potential for real-money trading in World of Warcraft: Forever has been a concern since the new MMO's reveal at BlizzCon 2026 – and despite Blizzard already taking action against alleged rule-breakers, fans are coming up with their own ways to deal with it.

In case you missed it, Blizzard took $200 in gold from a streamer last week after players flagged it as having been accumulated through real-money trading. Many fans thought the developer's punishment should be stricter, with some calling for "permabans" and the like.

One of the most pressing issues here, regardless of punishment, is how to actually tell which way somebody's gold was made.

Sure, when a lot of money is made in a short period of time – like during the Beta – it can feel a bit obvious… but it isn't always. Fans have figured out a workaround, however: an add-on that can tell whether or not gold was legitimately accrued.

It came up during a stream on Twitch (hosted by Ziqo, the very same content creator whose $200 worth of gold was nabbed back by Blizzard), in which a viewer said they've created just that.

They dub it IRS, amusingly enough, which is short for "Illicit Riches Scanner." Although it hasn't yet gone live for public downloads, its creator apparently sent Ziqo a beta file directly.

He commented on the add-on himself, saying it ensures "all gold that we receive in the future is fully natty" while calling it "a fucking add-on that compares their gold income to see if it looks sus" – with "their" meaning different players here, of course.

Ziqo describes the add-on as "bugged," but it's pretty interesting. It essentially scans through an account's historical gold against income statistics to flag any money that can't be spoken for legitimately.

The add-on looks at in-game trades in action, too, so I can see how it'd catch real-money trading, honestly – and, yes, it does indeed flag the majority of Ziqo's gold as illegitimate, so, uh, take that as you will, I suppose.

I do wonder what Blizzard's next move will be, and whether or not it'll deem the add-on all right, come its full release. The studio has been targeting inappropriate names recently and more, so it's clearly paying close attention.

Blizzard warns WoW Forever players that its stance on real-money trading is "crystal clear" following beta ban spree: "We will continue to take action"

World of Warcraft: Forever is all about preserving the original, vanilla WoW experience as it was back in 2004, but there's one quest from 2007 that the MMO's community has been asking Blizzard to make an exception for, and now their wishes have been granted.

For the uninitiated, the Kyle's Gone Missing quest was originally added to WoW during its Burning Crusade era from 2007. It was a Make-A-Wish request from a young player named Ezra 'Ephoenix' Chatterton, who had been battling brain cancer at the time. Blizzard did the right thing and let Chatteron design and perform the voice lines for the quest, which tasks you with helping Chatteron's NPC, Ahab Wheathoof, find his dog. It's an absolutely adorable and extremely heartwarming quest, but as WoW Forever only includes content from the original 2004 release, Kyle's Gone Missing has been, well, missing from Blizzard's new MMO until now.

Chatterton sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2008, but almost 20 years later, his memory is being honored in WoW Forever. Users on Blizzard's forum have been requesting that the quest to be added, and earlier this week a community manager indicated it was happening. Now, WoW Forever principal game designer Johnny Cash has confirmed in a tweet that Kyle's Gone Missing and Ahab Wheathoof have been added to the game in an emotional moment for the developer and anyone else who's familiar with Chatterton's story.

"I had the honor and privilege of bringing 'Kyle's Gone Missing!' into WoW: Forever," says Cash. "Ezra Chatterton was an enormous WoW fan, the creator and voice actor behind Ahab Wheathoof, and the creator of Kyle.

"A tear was shed during this one, my friends. Rest in peace, Ezra."

If you want to take on Ezra's quest and help find his dog, you'll find the character in Bloodhoof Village in the Mulgore region, which is actually the starting zone if you're playing as a Tauren. I won't spoil anything about the quest itself if you've yet to experience it, but you'll need to hit level 5 before you can start it.

I'm a lifelong MMO fan since the early days of Ultima Online and EverQuest, but WoW has always been a massive blind spot for me. I'm being sincere when I say I'm more compelled to dive in now than ever after researching and writing this story. It being the biggest MMO in the world, I'm no stranger to issues like player toxicity, but it's hard not to be just a little bit won over by gestures like this.

After 20 hours with World of Warcraft: Forever, I'm convinced it gives old school fans nearly everything they could want

Blizzard has issued a statement on real-money transactions in World of Warcraft: Forever as the new MMO continues its journey through beta, and it's clear the devs want to stamp out the issue before it gets more commonplace.

Over on the official forums, community lead Randy "Kaivax" Jordan confirms that developers have been taking action against accounts "found to be botting to amass gold in the WoW Forever beta, as well as the accounts of those who were found to have purchased or knowingly received illicit gold."

Moving forward, Jordan confirms that Blizzard will continue to do so and will also add a warning to the MMO that'll appear whenever you trade with strangers.

"Our stance on RMT in World of Warcraft is crystal clear: any account belonging to any player that is found to have participated in generating, selling, buying, or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, account suspensions, or permanent account closures," Jordan says.

Blizzard stance on RMT in WoW: Forever is something it's tried to be firm on since the fresh take on the classic MMO was announced at BlizzCon 2026. Touching on why something like GDKP – Gold Dragon Kill Points – isn't allowed, senior game designer Josh Greenfield said it's largely because it can encourage RMT, and that devs are taking the economy in WoW: Forever "very seriously."

Did that stop WoW Forever beta players from engaging with RMT? Absolutely not. As we previously reported, one WoW streamer who really caught the attention of the wider community found themselves losing $200 worth of gold for allegedly breaking the rules. They aren't the only one, and others have cried foul and maintain they didn't knowingly do so.

Regardless, if you find yourself with ill-gotten gold in WoW: Forever, it would appear that Blizzard will come down on it sooner rather than later.

WoW: Forever isn't about the MMO's many expansions, but Blizzard is making an exception for a Make-a-Wish quest from Burning Crusade in response to fan feedback: "Stay tuned."

Old Diablo heads will remember the Annihilus charm from Diablo 2 as one of the iconic ARPG's most powerful and coveted items. Even in its worst-rolled form, having one in your inventory granted +1 to all skills, +10 to all attributes, +10 to all resistances, and +5 to XP gained. It's the only small charm in the game that grants bonuses to all skills and attributes, and because it's small, it only takes up a single inventory space. It's the crown jewel of Diablo 2's endgame, and now it's in Diablo 4 as a Unique Horadric Seal.

The unfortunate thing about Annihilus in both games is that it's really freakin' hard to get. The exact parameters required to initiate the encounter in Diablo 4 are still being figured out by the community, but we know from various reports on Reddit as well as an in-depth video from Diablo creator Rob2628 that one of the ways you can get your hands on the Annihilus seal is by triggering an encounter with Uber Diablo, which in every case seems to follow a battle with the World Boss Azmodan. After that fight is over, an on-screen message warns, "Diablo walks the earth." Annihilus recipients say Diablo Clone drops the item when slain, just like in Diablo 2.

Also similar to Diablo 2 are the ridiculous passive buffs you get from the item. At max roll, this gloriously, stupidly over-tuned seal grants +20% to all stats, +20% resistance to all elements, +10 to all skills, and +10% bonus XP. Best of all, you can re-roll it at the Cube until you get the stats you want, although reports indicate it becomes account-bound once you do so. If you manage to get your hands on one of these bad boys, that's a genuine game-changer for literally any build.

While I don't have anywhere near the patience to try my luck at spawning Uber Diablo, much less beating him, I'm very much enjoying seeing all of these callbacks to older Diablo games in Diablo 4. The recreation of Diablo 1's campaign as a new Waking Nightmares activity was heavily marketed from the jump, but it seems there are still plenty of more niche discoveries to be made in season 15.

A broken Diablo 4 charm is dominating Season 15, but Blizzard has "decided not to make changes to it" for now

It's a day ending in 'Y', thus Blizzard is having to navigate some balancing problems in Diablo 4. In this instance, though, the devs have made the rare choice of just embracing what's going on, maintaining an unintended change from the Hellfire Torch in Season 15.

The Hellfire Torch is a new Unique Charm that came with the current season. Between serving as a Set Charm and a number of powerful bonuses, it's a particularly worthwhile bit of equipment that was even better than Blizzard bargained for.

In execution, players found they could get the bonuses of having three Unique Charms and a complete five-set of them at once through the Sea of the Golden Epiphany and the Seal of the Diamond Mind. This has rippled through the community pretty heavily, leading it to be a dominant force in the action-RPG's landscape. As such, players have been quick to feed this back to Blizzard, who're just rolling with it for now.

"While we've confirmed that this interaction is resulting in behavior beyond what was originally intended, we’ve decided not to make changes to it during the current season," Dan Tanguay, design director on Diablo 4, says on the official forums in a statement published by Rich 'Filthierich' Bantegui, a senior community manager for the Diablo series.

"We know many players have spent significant time earning the Hellfire Torch and building characters around it," he continues. "Because of that, we want to be thoughtful about making adjustments mid-season that could disrupt those investments."

It reads to me like the solutions right now involve either damaging people's builds in a way the devs dislike, or causing further disruption in a flailing house of cards sort of way. Tanguay asserts this will change, just not for the time-being.

"We’d like additional time to investigate the underlying issue and ensure that any future changes are implemented correctly and behave as intended," he says. While this may be frustrating, the acknowledgement demonstrates complaints haven't gone unheard. While you wait for a patch, see if the Hellfire Torch has any other quirks you're unaware of.

Diablo 5 "won't be ready for spring 2029," Path of Exile co-creator says, and "Blizzard money" won't change that

World of Warcraft: Forever fans have worried about the potential of real-money trading since Blizzard first unveiled the new MMO during BlizzCon 2026 – but, thankfully, it appears that the studio is cracking down on it prior to the full release.

Now that the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta is out in full force, some players have begun to suspect certain content creators for engaging in, well, real-money trading for in-game gold.

The suspicions have risen to an all-time high after fans spotted the gold that Twitch streamer Ziqo ("ziqoftw" on the platform) supposedly accumulated naturally – or at least not via any illicit means – as he somehow boasted some 380 gold or so.

That's a lot… so much so, in fact, that it comes in at $200 or so in real-life money, as one user points out over on X (that is, if you use shady websites to purchase it – websites I will not be linking to here).

Players immediately called for Ziqo and others they suspect like him to face in-game bans or some other form of punishment from Blizzard. In the words of the linked fan above, "I call for a 12 months ban, including the tournament."

They add that the developers "promised us even 20 year old accounts would get banned," referencing how Blizzard previously stated that World of Warcraft: Forever's economy is "something we're taking very seriously" – which, honestly, it seems it is.

That's because the studio did indeed take action against Ziqo, as a separate thread with a clip of the streamer attached points out. It actually took back his gold.

In it, Ziqo confirms as much, saying, "Blizzard did sweep up all my gold." He goes on to describe how "they cleansed it; they left me with nine silver," showing his inventory – and, yep, he's no longer rich… that's for sure.

So, there you have it, Blizzard is cracking down on fans likely engaging in real-money trading, and it's a welcome sight. Some players think the devs should be even more strict, though.

Comments show calls for "permabans" and the like – but Blizzard itself hasn't done so, as far as I can tell. Will they? Perhaps. They've been targeting inappropriate names recently as well, so it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

WoW: Forever dev says quest drops aren't changing in the MMO, but Blizzard has added " a bit of under-the-hood functionality" that makes them fairer

As of now, the release of Diablo 5 is set for 2029. That may seem like plenty of time for Blizzard, and it is, since it's three years away, but one of the co-creators of Path of Exile believes we'll likely be waiting at least a little bit longer for the next installment in the iconic series.

In a YouTube video discussing the game's announcement, Chris Wilson, lead designer on Path of Exile, provided his thoughts on Blizzard's plans. "They've announced they're targeting spring 2029, which is both quite specific and quite soon," he says.

He notes that Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred arrived in April of this year, indicating that development then shifted toward a sequel rather than another full-on expansion, a pivot similar to what Blizzard did at the end of Diablo 3's lifespan as well. Using this as a speculative benchmark, Wilson believes Diablo 5 has only been the team's central priority for around five months so far.

"This would explain why they did not show gameplay at BlizzCon, and mostly had concept art, design plans, and a short announcement cinematic," he reasons. "So how long will it take them to finish the game? Well, conveniently, in my past life, I ran a studio that was developing a similar-sized game."

He then points out that although Grinding Gear Games has "mature content pipelines and a custom engine specifically designed for that genre," development on Path of Exile has been going for eight years and counting. "Diablo 5 realistically needs around as much content at launch to be competitive, and they've even said that they have more character classes than any previous Diablo game, including expansions," he mentions.

"Their three-year timeframe feels like a very tight deadline to me," he adds. He concedes that, yes, they have "Blizzard money" and can pump up the team's numbers, but with rampant layoffs and budgeting concerns, that'd be a precarious strategy. Throw in the desire for in-depth playtesting before launch, especially for fine-tuning drop rates and balancing, and you have a cycle that could easily take longer.

"My best guess here is the game won't be ready for spring 2029," Wilson concludes. "But that's OK, delays happen and are normal in this industry. I can't count the number of times I had to delay a Path of Exile league release, and players were OK with it."

An underlying question here is why Blizzard made the announcement at all. Revealing plans too early can be troublesome; just ask Todd Howard about The Elder Scrolls 6. Wilson pins it on "Blizzard management," because Microsoft "wants more frequent releases for their core game series."

Around BlizzCon, Johanna Faries, the president of Blizzard, told Bloomberg that the company is "going to ship, and ship big, and ship on time." This was regarding both the new Diablo and the upcoming StarCraft, which is set for 2030.

Whatever the reason, we know this is coming. The release just mightn't reach our keyboards and mice before the 2030s roll around - but hey, patience is a virtue.

Diablo 5 director responds to concerns the action RPG is more action than RPG: "Any challenge can be overcome with the right build"

With a spring 2029 release window, Diablo 5 is still a ways off and presumably early in development, and as such there's a lot we don't know about it. We know it takes place about 100 years after Diablo 4 and that it won't have towns or safe zones outside of a Baldur's Gate-style caravan of traveling companions, but most of the sequel's core design pillars remain a mystery. Chiefly, we know next to nothing about how combat will work in Diablo 5, and considering Diablo games are almost exclusively about clicking demons to death, the ARPG community is waiting eagerly for more details.

Waiting right there alongside us is Chris Wilson, Grinding Gear Games co-founder and original Path of Exile designer. Wilson recently published a video on his YouTube channel in which he gives his in-depth reaction to the announcement of Diablo 5. Wilson says he's "tentatively hopeful" about Diablo 5 overall, but goes over a number of concerns he has about the direction Blizzard may or not be taking it. One of those concerns is the combat, which he says has been trending more and more "arcadey and actioney" since Diablo 3. His hope is that Diablo 5 goes back to the completely build-centric combat favored by his beloved Diablo 1 and 2, but he predicts it'll move even further into action territory.

I mention this in the context of a new tweet from Diablo 5 senior game director Joe Shely, which sounds like a response to Wilson's questions on combat even if it isn't intended as such.

"While Diablo V will continue to feature some DEX (moment-to-moment execution) mechanics, on balance the game will be an INT/STR game (planning and investment)," Shely says. "We are designing to the core tenet of ARPGs that any challenge can be overcome with the right build."

I've listened to Shely talk enough to know he's incredibly media-trained, so it's no surprise that his written remarks here don't actually reveal anything specific and substantive about Diablo 5's combat beyond some level of "moment-to-moment" mechanics. That could literally just mean you'll have to position your attacks in the direction of enemies and get out of the way of incoming attacks, or it could suggest a deeper embrace of action-like combat, but it's reassuring that the focus is still on build composition instead of, as Wilson puts it, "a dexterity player focus."

As a Diablo player from the very beginning, I'm not too worried about Diablo 5 having a slightly more intricate combat system so long as the fantasy is still about constantly iterating synergies between gear and abilities to make killing monsters easier and easier, and it sounds like that's still the case. I do agree with Wilson that monster scaling should probably be ditched or at least dramatically scaled back to make the world feel uncompromising and dangerous, but I suspect I'll be waiting a while longer for nittier, grittier details like that.

Diablo 4 seasons will continue after Diablo 5 launches "similar" to Diablo 2 and 3, Blizzard confirms

There's another version of Azeroth on the way in World of Warcraft: Forever. This iteration goes back to the first year of the MMORPG's timeline, but with extra flourishes and contemporary design elements, in contrast to how WoW: Classic brings back the old school gameplay. As a result, a fan-favorite quest from an old expansion isn't available, but Blizzard's remedying the situation.

Almost 20 years ago, a special mission was added in The Burning Crusade, known as Kyle's Gone Missing. You're tasked with helping Ahab Wheathoof find his dog. That's cute and sweet as is, and it only becomes more so when you know that it was the result of a Make-A-Wish request from one Ezra 'Ephoenix' Chatterton.

He designed this questline for Blizzard, and provided the voice work for Ahab, cementing himself as part of World of Warcraft eternally. It's been a rite of passage for players ever since. The Burning Crusade isn't in Forever, but there have been enough requests to include Chatterton's work that the devs are going to anachronistically make it happen.

"We're working on it," reads a response from community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan to a comment thread on the official forums asking for the mission. "Stay tuned."

The thread was started by one player who was asking on behalf of their partner, who managed to get some beta time. Forever is currently in a closed preview for members of the community, before going fully public on November 4. The area containing Kyle's Gone Missing, Mulgore, is accessible, making this a smaller leap than you might think.

I find it distinctly heartening to see so many rallying behind maintaining this commemoration. Even after 19 years, they're keeping Chatterton's memory alive. May we all enjoy such a legacy.

WoW: Forever dev says quest drops aren't changing in the MMO, but Blizzard has added " a bit of under-the-hood functionality" that makes them fairer.

With the surprise announcement of Diablo 5 at BlizzCon 2026, some fans of the series are left with a bittersweet feeling. Sure, a new game sounds great, and with Diablo 5 looking like the darkest entry in the series since OG Diablo, it does look great. But what does that mean for Diablo 4, which is only three years old? Well, Blizzard itself has confirmed it means no more Diablo 4 expansions, but the developer has made it clear seasonal updates will continue despite Diablo 5 being the apparent main focus within Blizzard's Diablo team. But with Diablo 4 seasons being as meaty as they are these days, complete with miniature remakes of legacy Diablo campaigns in the case of season 15, how long can Blizzard really keep that going? Apparently, as long as players keep showing up.

"We are planning on supporting seasons as long as the community continues to show up for D4," game director Brent Gibson tells Icy Veins. "Similar to what we have in D2 and D3. There are still people who play those games, and as long as you're showing up, we’re going to continue to be making content."

As Gibson alludes, this isn't a huge surprise considering Diablo 2 and 3's seasonal structures still haven't been abandoned, not to mention Diablo 2 getting a whole new class as recently as this year. That said, those games aren't really getting new seasons as in actual new content; they're essentially on maintenance mode with old seasonal themes on a rotating schedule. It seems to me Gibson is suggesting Diablo 4's seasonal updates will take a similar structure once Diablo 5 is released, which makes sense. I can only imagine the resources required to consistently update two mainline Diablo games with whole new storylines, regions, items, etc. at the same time. Not even the Xbox-owned Blizzard has pockets that deep.

Diablo himself is the reason Diablo 5 is coming instead of more Diablo 4 expansions, says project lead: "We needed to give him his own game"

We haven't seen much of Diablo 5 yet beyond the cinematic announcement we got at BlizzCon 2026, but Blizzard has been leaving a trail of breadcrumbs indicating a dramatic departure from previous entries in the series, and in other cases, a return to its roots. I've written at some length about how Blizzard is doubling down on the Diablo series' trademark darkness and why that's the best way to pay tribute to the original 1996 action RPG, and now Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson is pointing out a few more clues that seem to suggest Diablo 5 is taking inspiration from its early forbearers.

Of course, Path of Exile wouldn't exist without Diablo 1 and 2, so Wilson has a thoroughly documented obsession with those iconic ARPGs. He's also been outspoken about not having clicked with Diablo 3 and 4 for various reasons, and in a new video, he explains why he's "tentatively hopeful" that Diablo 5 will be closer in spirit to the first two games in the series.

"I felt the Diablo series had just moved on from the type of game that I loved, but when I watched the Diablo 5 announcement, I felt a glimmer of hope," Wilson says. "This wasn't just due to the words they were saying, but also what they intentionally chose to show." Wilson points out that the Diablo 5 logo features the letters of the title engulfed in flames similar to Diablo 1 and 2, and decidedly not similar to Diablo 3 and 4's flameless logos. Similarly, inventory concepts revealed in Diablo 5's announcement show items with distinct sizes and inventory management just like Diablo 1 and 2, something that was ditched in favor of uniform item sizes in Diablo 3 and 4.

"These are specific signals to players like me that there's a chance they're taking things back to basics and learning from the original games that established this franchise to begin with," says Wilson.

Those might seem like small details to draw any significant implications from, and indeed, Wilson says there are much bigger questions waiting to be answered that'll decide whether Diablo 5 is the return to form he's hoping for, or another evolution that drifts further from the core design ethos that inspired him to form his own studio and start making games for a living.

Crucially, in Wilson's view, Diablo 5 needs to ditch the enemy scaling that ensures Diablo 4's mobs are proportionate power-wise to the player's leveling. He says, "In my opinion, Diablo 5 absolutely must use a traditional system where the world has progressively more powerful monsters and you can choose how fast you progress through it and where to grind based on your current capabilities."

But Wilson also thinks Blizzard's decision to go back to linear world structure is a positive indication that Diablo 5 will, in fact, abandon monster scaling, pointing to a PC Gamer interview in which game director Joe Shely said the sequel will take a "somewhat different approach" to level scaling.

Maybe the strongest evidence yet that Diablo 5 is embracing earlier games in the series is its confirmed return to procedurally generated environments in dungeons and the overworld, something Wilson is "very excited about."

And yet, Wilson still has some serious concerns about the direction Blizzard is taking Diablo 5; including whether it'll be online-only or include an option for offline single-player; how item trading will work; and whether the combat system will be designed to reward physical dexterity, i.e. via a dodge and attack system, or well-composed character builds.

Again, Wilson's a big fan of the different sized items, but he also says the 84 inventory slots, compared to Diablo 2's 40, could mean you'll be returning to town a lot less in Diablo 5. And of course, by "town," he's referring to your mobile caravan of traveling companions, which coincidentally was inspired by narrative director Jennifer Hepler's time at BioWare.

Wilson also says the early Diablo games were full of obscure mechanics and obtuse interactions that made them endlessly interesting to unpack even as years passed, which contrasts with the much more polished systems in Diablo 3 and 4, which he says are easier to get into but lack that same depth.

"I'm tentatively hopeful for Diablo 5," Wilson concludes. "I wasn't expecting to be, but they've said enough of the magic words and picked the right font for the logo. I have my fingers crossed that they'll do a good job with it."

As for why he wants Diablo 5 to succeed when he has his own unannounced ARPG in the works, Wilson says, "Every other action RPG developer" benefits when the genre's ecosystem is thriving – and it certainly would be with a banging new Diablo game.

As someone with a similar love for Diablo 1 and 2, I agree with most of Wilson's points, especially the stuff about monster scaling. There was an uncompromising danger in those early games' exploration that made getting back to town thrilling and satisfying, and I'd even go further and say Blizzard should bring back open PvP outside towns, or caravans, like the Wild West that was Diablo 1 multiplayer. That last feature was left behind as early as Diablo 2, though, and I'm not expecting that level of embrace of unhinged online gaming culture.

Diablo 4's 30th anniversary event is "pretty distasteful," Path of Exile co-creator says: "Games should have respect for their core storylines."

This year's BlizzCon brought the announcement of Diablo 5. Although we're still a few years out from the sequel, development is already winding down on Diablo 4, to the point we're not getting any more major expansions. One of the co-creators of fellow action-RPG Path of Exile isn't enamored by Blizzard's strategy here, believing it undermines the series and the fanbase.

Chris Wilson, one of the central designers of Path of Exile, made these points in a YouTube video. "It feels like they're abandoning Diablo 4," he says of the announcement. "They even clarified there would be no more expansions developed for Diablo 4, but there would be some content released, I assume by the small team left running it."

He finds the proposed roadmap disappointing, to say the least. "One of those pieces of Diablo 4 content is a 30th anniversary event called Season of Hell's Legacy," he comments. "To be honest, this event feels pretty distasteful to me. I feel that games should have respect for their core storylines, and treat their antagonists with the respect that they deserve."

As you might have guessed, he doesn't believe the proposed gameplay additions or their presentation manage this. "Diablo 4 was slowly building up to you eventually getting to fight the Prime Evils, and then they introduce them all at once in this special event that isn't really tied into the game's storyline," he observes.

"They brought back Deckard Cain for the event, even though he was canonically killed in Diablo 3," he adds. In his mind, this makes it seem like "causality and story events" don't hold the appropriate weight, and "that we shouldn't take them seriously."

This is compounded by Blizzard calling Diablo, the big bad himself, "the birthday boy" on-stage. "If your franchise is called Diablo, and you've made billions of dollars from games that sell a fantasy of players working towards getting to confront and defeat Diablo, the Lord of Terror, then you should treat him with the utmost respect," Wilson states.

Not really the place for kiddy nicknames, is it? Despite all of this, Wilson is "tentatively hopeful" for Diablo 5. It's going back to more RNG-heavy world design, it has a truly desolate worldview, and he's pleased by the font choice for the logo. Hopefully Blizzard stays the course in its decision-making.

Diablo 5 tells "three stories" across the past, present, and future, and biomes will change shape depending on which of Diablo's minions is in charge

World of Warcraft: Forever has made rounds online for seemingly standing as Blizzard's own take on Classic+ – but how faithful does the new MMO truly stay to its 2004 predecessor?

Well, as showcased during BlizzCon 2026, it does feature some quality-of-life improvements alongside its cozy revamped visuals. One of these, according to senior game designer Josh Greenfield, has to do with the way that quest-related items drop for players in groups.

He explains as much in a new post over on X, first stating that drops aren't totally changing – but that doesn't mean they're not improving at all, per se.

"Someone asked me something earlier about how quest drops work in WoW: Forever and if we are changing that," writes Greenfield. "The short answer is no; however we did do something cool that we haven't really had a good opportunity to talk about yet. In the interest of our Pro-social approach, we added a bit of under-the-hood functionality to quests to more predictably round-robin quest items to people who are grouped."

Thank the Light – if there's one thing I think we all hate, it's feeling left behind while every other player in your group is getting drops left, right, and center… and Greenfield gets it.

"There's nothing worse than killing a million furbolgs and having one guy in your group have 8/10 furbolg butts, and the other guy has 1/10. In WoW: Forever we've got something in place that makes it a bit more consistent that everyone in the group will get drops evenly."

The World of Warcraft: Forever Beta's ever-changing, though. As Greenfield puts it, "We are still dialing in this system" – but folks should still give it a go.

"If you are afraid to group on drop quests, I'd encourage you to give it a try. It's still going to take time, just like vanilla WoW, but it'll be less feast or famine, and you'll definitely kill things much faster." And, again, the developers aren't completely overhauling the old in favor of the new.

"A bit of grind on these drop quests are part of the vanilla magic we are maintaining, but we can do small things to help it feel more natural and encourage grouping while still maintaining that original design, and that's our goal," as Greenfield concludes.

He expands on this in the comments, too: "There's still some randomness, but it's more like a bad luck protection if you haven't seen a drop in a while and others are pulling ahead."

Honestly, I'm fairly pleased with group play in the Beta myself so far. Drops do feel even enough, and if one person does get a lot more of something than another, they can trade.

Here's why we think World of Warcraft: Forever gives old school fans nearly everything they could want after spending just 20 hours in the stunning MMO.

Following Blizzard's big reveal of World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026, the MMO's official Beta release went live – and it's almost too popular.

So much so, that senior game designer Josh Greenfield said he was witnessing "the craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard" as the studio's servers kept breaking thanks to the WoW: Forever Beta.

The developers remedied the issue by, you know, simply increasing the MMO's population cap – something they've just had to do again over the weekend, because folks apparently can't get enough of it.

World of Warcraft executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale reveals as much in a new post over on X, writing, "So… we had to increase the WoW: Forever Beta population cap again. The wild ride continues." It continues, indeed.

Although Longdale doesn't specify whether Blizzard lifted the population cap for EU or US players, I'd wager it's for both. Despite costing at least $59.99 to access, the Beta boasts plenty of fans worldwide from what I've seen.

Heck, the initial launch was a bit of a debacle itself, as senior game producer Tom Ellis dubbed it "a bit excessive" as countless fans struggled to get into the game.

Although the devs figured the release out eventually, it seems as though the World of Warcraft beta is just as popular as before – or even more so, seeing as Blizzard is actively raising the population cap over time. It spells a good future for the MMO, honestly.

Its popularity makes sense, too. Devs previously described World of Warcraft: Forever as an edition of Blizzard's decades-old MMO that's "for the millions of people who have had their accounts lapse" in Classic – and I'd say that resonates.

Not only that, but it's managing to reach entirely new audiences as well, like myself… and after spending all weekend playing the Beta, I can safely say that it's also succeeding there.

Here's why we think World of Warcraft: Forever gives old school fans nearly everything they could want after spending just 20 hours in the stunning MMO.

I've been thoroughly enjoying my time with Diablo 4 Season of Hell's Legacy even if it just makes me really, really want a Diablo 1 remake, but I'm not alone in experiencing some pretty bad server wobbles, not to mention the launch-day delay of the new seasonal realm and Solo Self Found mode. As a token of appreciation to players who continue logging in despite these problems, Blizzard is giving away one of the game's rarest and most valuable crafting resources for free.

As reported by Icy Veins and verified by yours truly, if you log into Diablo 4 and head to the newly added Horadric Post in any major town, there's a good chance you'll find yourself a lovely little note from Blizzard explicitly apologizing for "unexpected issues" with season 15. And if you're super lucky, like me, you'll also find a single Resplendent Spark with your name on it. Well, your name won't literally be on it, but it'll be yours to keep, again, if you're lucky.

I mention luck here because it seems not everyone is getting Resplendent Sparks. In a Reddit thread discussing the freebie, several users report simply receiving the written note without any attached Spark, while others say they aren't seeing anything in their inboxes at all. That could just be an issue of the game client not being fully up to date, but the fact that some people are getting just the note and no Spark suggests Blizzard isn't sending out the crafting material to just anyone. I've reached out to Blizzard for clarification on that and will update this story if I hear back.

Resplendent Sparks are incredibly hard to find, which is why we have a whole guide on how to get them, and they're essential to crafting Mythic Uniques, which are of course the game's most powerful gear. You'll need more than one Spark depending on what you want to craft, but I'm certainly not turning my nose up at Blizzard's offer.

Diablo 5 goes back to a pre-Diablo 4 world of "constant discovery" and procedural dungeons: "The only thing beyond the fog of war is more questions"

I've been playing World of Warcraft since its 2004 launch, so I've somehow been playing it for half my life. There's a familiarity there which is pivotal to why I enjoy it so much, but I also don't want things going stale. It's a tricky line to tread, but I think World of Warcraft: Forever has nailed it, reviving the original spirit of World of Warcraft that captured the hearts and minds of myself and millions, while simultaneously feeling like a new step forward.

Cliches exist for a reason, and I can't lie when I say that playing World of Warcraft: Forever genuinely feels like a homecoming – if that home had just been redecorated and tidied up a little. Home really is where the heart is, and between live, laugh, loving, and slaughtering through Azeroth from low-level upward once again, it feels like playing spot the difference between it and other incarnations of World of Warcraft. Ultimately though, it's just a lot of fun! Who says you can never go home again? The good old days are forever.

Classic, again

World of Warcraft: Forever has already been affectionately called Classic Plus by fans, and that sums up the new, third WoW pillar well. It has the slightly harder original difficulty level of World of Warcraft Classic, but with a bundle of quality of life improvements that come from the 'other', core WoW experience (AKA: Retail) with its most recent expansion pack, Midnight. If you haven't played in a long while, think of Forever (and its Classic cousin) as recreating the version you're most likely to remember. It's an approach that bridges the gap between modern and old school, and effectively gives Blizzard a second chance at improving upon the Classic formula.

Forever revives WoW as it was many years ago, like Classic did. However, it does so with a new race (Skyborne), improved visuals, some quality of life additions, and a hard level cap of 60 so you won't see any expansion packs like with Classic and Retail. Instead, progression will eventually be horizontal with new gear and new max level zones and dungeons. Think Classic but more, and without any expansion packs in the future. Confused yet? I don't blame you. The message could be a little clearer. Regardless, an MMO that stubbornly promises to never go past level 60 is a bold move, especially for a game called Forever.

This particular beta only allows you to level up to 20 but that's a strong start. Particularly bearing in mind that when the game officially launches on November 4, the servers are wiped and you're starting all over again. At some point, the level cap will increase to 30 before the beta ends in late October, but even with the lower cap there's plenty to get stuck into already.

Right now, the beta is incredibly busy. Instead of using traditional server realms, Blizzard has opted for realms based on how you want to play. There's a PvE, PvP, and Roleplay realm (Permadeath Hardcore mode is to follow) and in theory, you'll always have someone to play with because each one is packed with players rather than being spread across multiple servers.

After a long time of feeling like I was alone on my previous WoW server, the population brings back memories of when the game launched. There are players everywhere! From small towns like Auberdine to the sprawling city of Stormwind, I've witnessed people working together, buffing each other, and yes, still throwing out trash talk because it is WoW after all. But, good-spirited ribbing can still give me a fuzzy feeling. World of Warcraft feels like an MMO again.

A couple of times when I die, someone even resurrects me just because they can. There are glimmers of kindness and so many signs of virtual life. Blizzard has tapped into that further with its camping system. A form of crafting, you can place a campsite down and others can share special buffs while gathering around the fire. It's surprisingly heartwarming to see and feels so community spirited.

World of wishlists

Adding to the 'let's do what we've been meaning to do for years' attitude that Blizzard seems to be demonstrating, there are so many more quests in starting zones and beyond than before. WoW veteran, Rob Pardo, once told me that during playtesting of the original game, the team quickly realized there needed to be a lot more quests added to the game. Well, now there's even more than that.

Better still, they tend to link together better, leading you to new zones or teaching you new and valuable skills. For instance, one quest in Darkshore gives me water breathing potions which previously felt like gold dust to acquire. Many additions feel so natural that veteran players will find themselves racking their brains to remember which quests are new and which were always there. Also, you can keep 40 quests in your log instead of the very paltry 20 of before. One of the many subtle quality of life improvements you'll soon end up adoring. I liked stockpiling myself with quests from different zones so I could wander freely and always have something new to do.

There are things that don't entirely impress me though. The lighting and water effects are much improved, bringing vibrancy to the visuals, but other graphical improvements feel much more subtle rather than revolutionary. This isn't the WoW 2.0 we all hoped for. The only new zone in this beta is the starting zone for the Skyborne race, Zephras Isle, and that's very pleasant and more modern to look at. It's also a sprawling zone that is potentially a little too vast for starting out in. The Skyborne race itself is best described as elven smurfs but as a night elf main, I feel at home.

Another thing to tick off the 'I always wanted this' list is gamepad support. It's in alpha right now and I wasn't entirely sold but I can see the promise. It's a lot like Final Fantasy 14's gamepad support so the potential is there, but undoing 20 years of using mouse and keyboard is going to take some time. I'm hopeful it means you'll be able to play on a ROG Ally or Steam Deck more effectively one day.

So early on into its beta, it's hard to tell what the future holds for World of Warcraft: Forever. It's clearly very popular right now with certain imbalances compensating for that such as super fast respawns of even 'rare' mobs. There are still many new items to find with some cool rumors floating around, from weapons that open up brand new class strategies, to a series of strange books. Just this week, an item that allows you to mine without possessing the mining skill has been found, along with an experience boosting sleeping bag.

There are new zones for higher levels too, yet to be explored. I'm intrigued to see what the account-wide Legacy system will look like too which unlocks at level 25 and presumably the next stage of the beta. It promises to be kind of like the current achievement system but with rewards such as buffs or new pets and mounts. I'm hopeful it extends longevity once you hit level 60.

What I do know is that I'm really enjoying my time with World of Warcraft: Forever. As a big Classic fan, it still scratches the itch from being a veteran player but offers quality of life fixes that save me from needing to install add-ons, all while giving me a genuinely active community again.

A little like World of Warcraft: Midnight did for Retail, World of Warcraft: Forever feels like exactly what old school players need to revitalize and re-excite. Forever, Classic, and Retail will all co-exist as separate branches of WoW – and Forever feels like it's eating Classic's lunch a bit after playing – but I'm beginning to suspect a lot of players after a traditional MMO experience will flock to Forever unless they're true purists. As a veteran player, it feels like the obvious option. Whichever you favor, 2026 is shaping up to be a very good year for World of Warcraft fans.

Room for more in your world? Check out our best MMOs and best RPGs rankings for further adventures!

Although it feels like Blizzard only just unveiled World of Warcraft: Forever during BlizzCon 2026, some time has passed now and the beta is out in full force – and, unsurprisingly, folks are already catching bans for inappropriate behavior.

What inappropriate behavior so early on, you might ask – and it all boils down to character names. People are choosing, erm, less than respectful titles for their avatars, and it's caught Blizzard's attention.

As the studio writes in an online post, "Reminder to keep your character names in the Forever Beta respectful and within policy. Forced name changes are going into effect and users with the most extreme violations have been removed from the Beta."

While that all sounds valid enough, some fans aren't having it. There are various threads circulating the web with claims of overaction from Blizzard, as players say they're mildly crude or silly names have been targeted wrongfully.

The developers disagree, though – as per a statement over on Twitter from senior game producer Tom Ellis, the team is not just taking accounts down willy-nilly. Not at all, in fact.

Ellis explains, "Anyone saying they were removed from beta for naming their character 'Billy Mcsuckmahballz' is telling little white lies. That character likely just received a forced name change. Multiple unfortunate humans read through every name that was removed from beta today. If you're genuinely confused, remember that it's our database, we can see every character you've created, not just the one you're playing."

He then concludes, "I read the list. No sympathy. Be a better human next time." That checks out, honestly – and it's hard to counter the devs when they've got an active database of the bans they've issued.

A handful of fans are still upset, judging by the comments, but I see plenty more celebrating Blizzard's crackdown on its initial announcement. As one reply puts it, "Based. Thank you." It can't be easy keeping things SFW, after all.

Especially not within such a massive MMO community. There are responses noting that the devs have missed some inappropriate names, for example – but they are only getting started here. World of Warcraft: Forever's full release is on November 4.

World of Warcraft: Forever is "for the millions of people who have had their accounts lapse" in Classic, dev says.

When Blizzard first unveiled World of Warcraft: Forever during BlizzCon 2026, many fans saw it as the MMO developer's answer to their Classic+ prayers – and, according to world builder Matthew Armstrong, it sounds like it basically is just that.

The dev goes into detail on who Forever is truly "for" in a lengthy new thread on Twitter, saying that he had a very particular type of player in mind while helping design Blizzard's revamped take on its 2004 gem: the hardened Classic fan who didn't feel satisfied with the non-retail version and how it deviated from the original game.

"I'm seeing a lot of discourse about who WoW: Forever is being made for," he writes. "While I cannot speak for anyone else on the team I can speak for myself. I am making WoW: Forever for the Classic gamer and for the millions of people who have had their accounts lapse over the years because they were not satisfied with changes that were made to the game. Whether those changes were to the art style, the story, social aspects, game design, or changes to their favorite class."

World of Warcraft: Forever is no retail, that's for sure. "I did not spend the last year of my life relearning and mastering how to do things like we did it 20+ years ago for retail players," as the world builder puts it.

"I could have taken it easy and just kept doing things like I had done for the past eight years on retail… because I was much more familiar with it and it actually takes a lot less time to do (height maps on textures do a ton of heavy lifting)."

And, as Armstrong points out, "because the reality is that the majority of retail players wouldn't care and would probably actually prefer it." That's not what he did, though.

"I felt I had a duty to uphold an artistic vision and integrity that millions of people expect from us" – both players and fellow devs "past and present who worked on it over 20 years ago." He wanted to "create something that resembled their work.

That's what Forever is – an Old School RuneScape-style upgrade to the original World of Warcraft MMO many folks know inside out and love. And, Armstrong clarifies that it's not a diss aimed at fans of the retail version.

He simply "wanted to make Forever as authentic of a vanilla experience as possible," which is "wildly different" than retail, obviously. There are three "sayings" he says he's followed throughout development, too.

"Convenience is the death of the journey" is the first – which checks out. Then, "If you're making a game for everyone then you're making it for no one." Again, that aligns well with what Armstrong says regarding Classic and retail fans. Finally, "Every change we make incurs a debt to the authenticity of the game and sooner or later that debt will be paid." I suppose Classic (and all the Classic+ requests) proves this point.

"These are my core beliefs and I had a specific group of people I was targeting with my work," he concludes. "These beliefs cannot be shaken and I will try to hold the line against anything that goes against them and will continue to pester the team about things that feel out of place."

Armstrong does still hope World of Warcraft: Forever "will pull in as many people as possible," Classic, retail, or otherwise.

"I hope you can all remember what made this game so special in the first place and that starts with understanding why we are so passionate about keeping it authentic."

I certainly do, and judging by the comments, it's safe to say the majority of players do.

"You can't tell me this isn't WoW 2": Blizzard says World of Warcraft doesn't need a sequel thanks to Forever, but MMO fans say it already made one.

Diablo 5 takes place in a world where the titular Lord of Terror has already won, taking over Sanctuary and reshaping the world in his own image. For Blizzard, telling this dark chapter of the story means telling multiple stories in parallel: the past, the present, and the future.

That's according to game director Joe Shely, who tells our friends at TechRadar Gaming that there are "three stories that we're telling" within the world of Diablo 5. The past story is the tale of how Diablo took over Sanctuary in the first place. The present, of course, seems to consist of the main action of the game, where the familiar world has been taken over by the minions of Hell.

Diablo's top minions in this desolate world are called Dread Commanders, and they take an active role in reshaping Sanctuary in Hell's image – hence the future part of the story. "We call it terror forming because these Dread Commanders will actually transform the environment, transform the biome into a version of hell that relates to personal powers and powers at station," Shely says.

"The procedural world gives us a lot of levers to pull for that," narrative director Jennifer Hepler adds. "You can go to a place, and it is under the control of the Dread Commander of Undeath, and it's going to be full of zombies and things like that. And then later in the game, you could return there, and it's either been reclaimed by humanity or taken over by a different Dread Commander, and the environment will be totally different as a result of that."

Blizzard's publicly stated goal for Diablo 5 is to make sure it's got "the best campaign ever," and the studio is taking a big swing with the setting to make sure that's true. The devs are also insistent that a full sequel is necessary because the return of the titular big bad is too big for a mere Diablo 4 expansion. We'll have plenty of time to speculate on how these choices will pan out, since the game isn't scheduled to launch until 2029.

Diablo 5 is Blizzard's darkest ARPG yet, and that's the best way to honor the game that changed my life 30 years ago.

Following the big reveal of World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026, many fans dubbed it Blizzard's answer to their Classic+ prayers – but others see it as such a strong revival of the original MMO, it might as well be a sequel in its own right.

World of Warcraft: Forever is many things: a revamped take on Blizzard's beloved 2004 gem, an MMO with new content that nobody has previously experienced, and an all-around cozy game to pour hundreds of hours into between school or work.

What it technically isn't, however, is an official sequel – but fans enjoying its paid beta period feel it's got enough bang for its buck that might as well be World of Warcraft 2, apparently.

One fan taken aback by Forever's stunning nighttime visuals declares as much, writing in a post on Twitter, "You can't tell me this isn't WoW 2." Over on Reddit, commenters discuss how the new game "opens up so much potential," with a response calling it "a pretty smart way to develop WoW 2."

Threads on the official World of Warcraft forums echo this sentiment, as folks write that "WoW Forever feels like WoW 2.0 and it makes sense."

It's certainly an interesting take to read, especially seeing as Blizzard itself essentially said that World of Warcraft 2 isn't happening because the developers aren't sure what a sequel to the old MMO would "give you that World of Warcraft: Forever isn't already giving you" – so, yeah.

It's undeniably a downright huge project for the studio, and it seems that even they liken it to a successor of sorts… even if it'll coexist with Classic and retail.

Honestly, I'm personally thrilled with the beta so far myself. Blizzard has nailed everything from the ambience to the quest design, placing me in the shoes of a giddy child booting up their new game for the first time ever once again – and, yes, I even happen to like the controversial Skyborne race, regardless of its hefty $30 price tag, and its opening story.

The devs have something very good cooking here, y'all.

That, plus the fact that Blizzard is waving goodbye to combat add-ons (much like it did in retail before) and GDKP – thank the Light. I just can't wait until everyone gets to hop into World of Warcraft: Forever on November 4.

World of Warcraft: Forever dev tells fans concerned by datamines and screenshots to "reserve judgment" until they play Blizzard's new MMO.

World of Warcraft has been running for 22 years, and even now Blizzard sometimes struggles to keep up with demand. Yesterday, the WoW: Forever beta launched and immediately broke under the weight of everyone trying to get in at once. How is this still happening when Blizzard has decades of experience with launching new MMO content? The devs themselves say they were genuinely taken aback by just how popular the Forever beta has been.

"Man, it was hard to sleep last night, I was so excited," senior game designer Josh Greenfield says on Twitter. "Beta has been... crazy. The craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard and almost 8 years on classic. We've got something really special here."

Maybe that sounds hyperbolic, but senior game producer Tom Ellis has posted a more exhaustive technical breakdown of what went wrong for the opening hours of the Forever beta. "It's not a Production stack by a long, long, long, long, long, long shot," Ellis explains on Twitter. "Betas for WoW aren't usually huge meter movers so this environment just isn't that powerful."

Because "our little BETA environment only uses one REGIONAL realm," Ellis says, math on the servers started getting screwy as this one little connection point was suddenly having to funnel in so many players. This is why people kept getting disconnected after sitting through the lengthy login queues.

It took the devs "around half an hour" to figure out that this was the bottleneck, because the game and Battle.net services both showed very little load. "We all recognized we need more logging and notifications when this system is kicking in, but this is the first time anyone's seen it kick in when [there] wasn't an obvious CPU issue to go along with it," Ellis explains. "20 years, always something new."

Ellis also addresses the long times players were experiencing while looting, accepting quests, and performing similar server-bound actions. "Our intrepid Oracle Database Engineers had to perform a manual analyze on all the tables and setup some automated jobs to periodically keep doing it," but because the servers were being hit so frequently, the typical rate wasn't sufficient. As soon as the devs addressed that, the database performance "cleared up instantly."

There were the restarts. "A few hours in, we noticed our WORLD pools that run, well, the game simulation you play on, were running crazy hot on CPU and almost out of memory," Ellis explains. Empty maps were not being correctly shut down, and those were slowly – or, actually, "not that slowly" – clogging up CPU and memory on the servers. The devs figured out a fix, but that fix needed restarts "to pick it up." Blizzard also took the opportunity to add additional worlds and expand the regional service for further stability.

Back in 2019, we interviewed numerous devs about why big online games always seem to break at launch, and it seems that all the same problems inevitably crop up. We heard one dev say "it's just impossible" to fully solve these kinds of launches, and WoW: Forever demonstrates how new issues crop up every single time. But hey, at least the fixes are coming faster. I'm old enough to remember when people were struggling to play Diablo 3 for weeks after launch…

WoW: Forever doesn't allow GDKP, Blizzard says the new MMO's economy is "something we're taking very seriously."

The unveiling of Diablo 5 during BlizzCon 2026 prompted a range of reactions from oohs and aahs to disappointment at the confirmation that the surprise sequel means no more expansions for Diablo 4. Diablo 4 currently has two expansions, 2024's Vessel of Hatred and this year's Lord of Hatred, and there won't be any more as Blizzard focuses on getting Diablo 5 out the door by its planned release window of spring 2029. The game will still get regular seasonal updates, like the wonderfully nostalgic Season of Hell's Legacy, but full-blown expansions are officially in the rear view for Diablo 4.

We haven't seen much of Diablo 5 yet, but one big departure from series convention is the complete removal of towns and safe zones, which ties into the narrative premise about Diablo having won the big war against humanity before the story kicks off. Even with such a big change from previous entries, a lot of Diablo fans have asked what made Blizzard decide on a full-on sequel instead of more Diablo 4 expansions, and now we have a clear answer.

Talking to GameSpot, Diablo 5 executive producer Matt Zitterman says the decision to make a sequel instead of more expansions came down to a deep understanding of the Diablo community and what it wants.

"Who are Diablo players? Why are they playing Diablo? What do they want out of a Diablo game?" says Zitterman. "That is a really critical step in the early conceptual phase for a game, even before you're thinking about, 'should we make this an expansion? Should we make it a sequel? How do we do this?' Really deep understanding of who are players are."

From there, Blizzard looked at what people liked and didn't like about Diablo 4 and used that feedback to figure out its overall "ambition" for the series. Zitterman says it became clear "pretty early" that "some deeply structural changes" had to happen "in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve with this game," and those changes would've been "frankly hard to do in an expansion."

More importantly, or at least this is my read on Zitterman's quotes, Blizzard just wanted to make a whole game about the Lord of Terror himself, the birthday boy celebrating 30 years, Al'Diabolos. "Diablo is the main villain. Diablo is the guy that we want to tell a real story about," says Zitterman. "We want to tell a story that's on par, and hopefully exceeds, the story that we told with Lilith and Mephisto, and to do that in an expansion just didn't feel right. We needed to give him his own game."

Of course, Diablo has arrived at long last to terrorize Sanctuary in Diablo 4 as part of the new seasonal questline, but Diablo 4 does still very much feel like Lilith's game. With big dawg having appeared as the main antagonist in every Diablo release so far, I'm curious what the distinction will be in Diablo 5 with him being front and center to the game's development.

Diablo 5 is Blizzard's darkest ARPG yet, and that's the best way to honor the game that changed my life 30 years ago

Whenever I play Overwatch with my friends and actually contribute to our success, I'm treated like a child who's 'helping' his parents put away groceries and manages to put the cheese in the right fridge drawer for a change. In short, I suck.

Even when I'm in the zone as my main man, Reinhardt, I'm not sure I've ever gotten MVP in the hundreds of matches I've played over the years. It was to my great surprise, then, that I found myself dominating as new support hero Doctrine over the weekend at BlizzCon 2026.

Don't get me wrong; I still didn't get MVP in the handful of matches I played. But I was surprisingly competent for someone who A) sucks, and B) had never played Doctrine before. Even without much time to get a good handle on the hero's moves, Doctrine's primary ranged attack, speed, and healing speed-buffing drones were so intuitive that my Quick Play performance made me feel like I wasn't being carried for once.

Unfortunately, I have a hunch that I didn't suddenly 'git gud', synchronizing with Doctrine's life energy as a lover of all things vampire myself. No, my impression after a few surprisingly great rounds as Doctrine is that a big, fat, bloodsucking nerf is probably waiting around the corner to take the wind right out of my sails.

Jack of all trades

What surprised me the most about Doctrine is just how incredibly well-balanced he is. With great mobility bolstered by straight-up flight via Infuse, solid DPS for a support, flexible engagement range, and an Ultimate with a nasty HP debuff and simultaneous team heal, it's hard to identify a major vulnerability in the vamp's toolkit.

I foresee his Deliverance Ultimate specifically becoming a real problem as players familiarize themselves with his abilities. It's probably going to be one of the main targets of the hero's inevitable first balance update. Meanwhile, Infuse changing the character's rush and drone abilities makes Doctrine a tough hero to predict and counter. With a perk that dramatically reduces Infuse's damage and healing cooldowns, that unpredictability becomes, well, even more unpredictable.

I brought up Doctrine's versatility in a conversation with Overwatch game director Aaron Keller. He pointed out the new hero's high aim skill floor as a potential downside, while ultimately agreeing with me about "flexibility."

"You need to have pretty high aim right there," Keller says. "He also has a pretty decent amount of mobility as well. He can get in, get out, get to high ground if he infuses his dash. So, I think that there's a lot of flexibility with somebody like Doctrine." Asked specifically what meta niche is being filled by a highly-adaptable hero like Doctrine, Keller says he's "not exactly sure who he's going to replace or what the best synergy is here," but "he's going to be versatile and powerful enough to where he gets incorporated into the meta."

Not another Jetpack Cat

Keller says it's a dangerous game, predicting how a new hero will be perceived – balanced, underpowered, or overpowered – because while the dev team tests out roster additions "a lot," it's still "just a team of a couple hundred people" all operating at "different skill levels."

Still, he insists players will grapple with Doctrine's "high skill cap" and strategic design, hopefully preventing all-out support meta dominance similar to Jetpack Cat at launch. "There's aim skill, and there's a lot of strategic decision-making that you need to do with how and when you're going to use Infuse," he explains of Doctrine's playstyle. "It'll be interesting to see if this becomes one of those heroes that is just played a ton at the high level and maybe played a little bit less at lower levels, or if he's played all over the place," Keller tells me.

If Doctrine really is the easy-to-learn but tough-to-master hero Keller says he is, that's terrifying. In other words, if a scrub like me was able to become a respectable, even valuable, team-player in my very first games as the new hero, imagine his potential in the hands of someone who actually knows what they're doing after six months in Ranked queues? That's why a nerf feels all but guaranteed once Doctrine officially joins the Overwatch roster on October 6.

If Overwatch isn't your thing, be sure to check out our ranking of the best FPS games to find your new obsession.

World of Warcraft: Forever has been on many a fan's mind since Blizzard's big reveal during BlizzCon 2026, especially as it's essentially a take on the long-requested Classic+. But how exactly will it differ from the other branches of WoW?

Well, according to senior game designer Josh Greenfield, there's one glaring difference: GDKP will not be a part of Forever.

In case you're out of the loop, GDKP stands for Gold Dragon Kill Points – an auction-based loot distribution system that sees a raid party's treasure go to the highest bidder, only for all of the accumulated gold to then be split across the players. It's controversial because lots of folks feel it encourages real-money trading.

So, what does Greenfield have to say about it? In a new Q&A session over on YouTube, the lead first explains that World of Warcraft: Forever won't allow GDKP.

"The short answer is no, we are not going to allow GDKP," he says. "I think the most important aspect of that to us is our first pillar – to nurture and protect social experiences. I think a lot of the concerns around GDKP start to get bundled up into that conversation, around things like that."

Is Blizzard making this choice because of real-money trades? Not entirely.

"The actual main reason that we are not going to allow it in WoW: Forever is that it has that sort of tendency we've noticed in the regions where [GDKP] has been popular for longer to reach a level of ubiquity," Greenfield says. "That can kinda overtake the traditional guild structure, and that's one of the really difficult decisions about being a game designer, managing this game at this scale."

It's not an easy decision, as Greenfield states. "Sometimes, you have to make difficult choices. We never really want to tell people how to play" – but systems like GDKP can get in the way of others' experience with the MMO.

They can act as a "big barrier to entry for new players, or players that do not have that many resources," he says. Longtime fans can quickly make some gold, while newcomers end up feeling forced to "buy gold."

That's no bueno, and "something we're taking very seriously in WoW: Forever," Greenfield explains. Plus, it feeds into the whole economy and real-money transaction debacle.

"GDKP is an excellent way for bad actors to launder large sums of gold," as he says. This complicates everything for both players and the developers alike, as they struggle to target bots and such. In World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard will "be very, very actively monitoring the economy."

Honestly, I'm happy to hear that Blizzard's settled on no GDKP runs in Forever – here's hoping the economy remains healthy, and the studio stays strong in its decision to restrict the auction-based raid loot system (and, it seems, combat add-ons, too).

World of Warcraft: Forever beta struggles to launch as devs say "the number of people hammering at the door of the Beta is... insane"