A Hearthstone regular finally walks the land behind the cards, and Azeroth has rarely looked better.
For years, my relationship with World of Warcraft has lived almost entirely on a tavern table, where I know exactly what Garrosh’s Armor Up! does to a control matchup and I’ve slammed down Charge, Heroic Strike and Execute hundreds of times. What I had never really done is walk the world those cards come from, and World of Warcraft: Forever, the“Classic Plus” fans spent years asking Blizzard for, seemed like the right excuse to finally leave the tavern.
WoW Forever was announced at BlizzCon in September and launches on November 4 as a third way to play WoW alongside the modern game and Classic, built on Classic’s foundations but with a new race in the Skyborne, sharper visuals and a handful of quality-of-life touches. The bigger change is philosophical, because the level cap is fixed at 60 for good, so there won’t be expansion packs pushing it higher the way there have been for Classic and the modern game. Instead, Forever grows sideways with new gear, new max-level zones and new dungeons arriving over time, and launch already brings new zones like Mount Hyjal and Zephras Isle, more than 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons and reworked talents. It’s included with a regular WoW subscription, though the Skyborne sit behind a paid pack.
The beta opened with a level cap of just 20, which sounds stingy until you remember that the servers get wiped on November 4 and everyone starts from scratch anyway. Blizzard has since raised the cap to 30, and testing wraps up on October 21.
I’ve put roughly ten hours into it so far and I’m still going, playing as a Tauren Warrior, which is about as adventurous as ordering the Big Mac at McDonald’s. After years of watching a Warrior’s armor tick upward in Hearthstone, a horned giant with a big axe felt like the natural place to start, but I’m still new to the game, so take this as a read on the opening hours rather than a verdict on everything Forever plans to be.
Not quite Classic, and that’s the point
I played Classic very briefly a long time ago, and Forever hit that same familiar note almost immediately. If it felt nostalgic to someone with as little history as me, I can only imagine how hard it lands for players who spent 2005 camping the same quest mobs.
I went in expecting Classic with a fresh coat of paint, but that isn’t what this is, and while the bones are recognizable, the experience feels rebuilt for people arriving now. The quest flow is the clearest example, letting me move from one location to the next without much backtracking, with each batch of quests nudging me toward the next area instead of sending me trudging back to a hub I’d already cleared. The interface helps too, with a modern look that never makes you fight the menus, which matters a great deal when you’re learning the game rather than relearning it.
The cards come to life
The biggest surprise was how much Hearthstone had quietly prepared me, with spell names I knew as cards suddenly carrying real weight behind them. In Hearthstone, Charge is something I give a minion. In Forever, the minion is me, barreling headfirst into whatever was unlucky enough to be standing nearby.
The Warrior itself is a joy once it clicks. Rage builds as you take and deal damage, and spending it on a big, heavy hit at the right moment is deeply satisfying. Early on, the class asks you to wade into the fight and stay there, and the combat rewards that with a real sense of impact, enough that I kept picking fights I probably should have walked around.
Prettier than I expected
I played with the new HD visuals switched on, and Azeroth looks great, with Mulgore’s open plains and soft lighting making it easy to forget this world first launched over two decades ago. My one snag was brightness, as some areas looked off until I adjusted my monitor’s display profile, but it only took a few minutes and hasn’t been a problem since, so it’s just worth knowing if things look washed out at first.
Where it still trips you up
The map is my main complaint, because while it’s fine for getting around, it’s poor at showing where things actually begin, and more than once I circled an area hunting for an entrance the map only vaguely hinted at. Veterans will know where every cave mouth is by muscle memory. Newcomers will spend some quality time running in circles.
The bug I did run into was combat at close range, where every so often my attacks simply wouldn’t register when I was standing right on top of an enemy, which for a Warrior is a bit like bringing a cardboard sword to a brawl. Blizzard’s own known-issues list includes a related bug where enemies can parry and block from behind when you’re too close, and its workaround until the fix lands is to not stand so close, which is a strange thing to ask of a Warrior.
The other players helped close that gap. I played solo on European servers from Riyadh, and latency was never an issue, which is good news for anyone in the region wondering whether they’ll be stuck lagging behind. The people I crossed paths with were mostly helpful, whether that meant pointing me in the right direction or not making a fuss when I wandered into their fight.
Should you play it?
If you’re a lapsed or lifelong WoW player who wanted Classic without the feeling of replaying a museum exhibit, Forever looks like exactly what you asked for. If you’re like me and know Azeroth mostly through Hearthstone, this is the friendliest door into the real thing Blizzard has offered in years, familiar enough to feel like home and modern enough that you won’t bounce off it in the first hour. And if you’re hoping for a polished-up copy of 2004, you may be surprised by how much has been reworked.
I’m only scratching the surface, but I’m in no hurry to stop. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cave entrance to find.
Beta access was provided by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft: Forever launches on November 4 on PC and Mac.
