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.
