Beta & Editions
The beta ended on 23 October 2026 and this page is the record of it. It opened capped at level 20, went to level 30 on 1 October, and nothing carried over — characters, progress and names all went with the test realm. Launch is 4 November 2026, 3:00 p.m. PST. Below: how to get in, what each pack actually contains, what you can and cannot test, and the addon situation — which is the biggest surprise in the whole announcement.
The beta ended on 23 October 2026. Everything below describes a test realm that no longer exists; characters, progress and names from it were not carried forward. It is retained because the schedule, the editions and the addon and API findings are still the record of what was tested.
For what happens next, see Launch Day — name reservation runs 27 October – 3 November 2026 and the game goes live 4 November 2026, 3:00 p.m. PST.
On this page 10 sections
Source tiers
- Official or client data
- Verbatim reporting, hands-on
- Provisional or placeholder
- Our analysis
The $29.99 Skyborne Heroic Pack does NOT include beta access. Blizzard's Heroic bullet list simply has no beta line; the Epic Pack's reads “Access to the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta starting on September 17.” The cheapest guaranteed entry is $59.99. The free opt-in is a lottery.
Getting in
| Route | Cost | Guaranteed? |
|---|---|---|
| Free opt-in at worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/forever — sign in, click Beta Opt-In at the top | Free | Lottery Page text: “Opt-in for a chance to beta test.” Nothing improves the odds |
| Skyborne Heroic Pack | $29.99 | No beta access |
| Skyborne Epic Pack | $59.99 | Yes |
| Warcraft Forever Collection | $79.99 | Yes |
Upgrading Heroic → Epic later costs only the difference. No opt-in deadline was announced; opt-in stayed open during the beta for wave invites.
The beta flipped on immediately after the live dev Q&A. Blizzard's announcement article gives it precisely:
When: Thursday 17 September, 10:00 AM PDT for modern WoW and 10:30 AM PDT for WoW Forever.
Where: the official Warcraft Twitch and YouTube channels. A VOD goes up afterwards.
The two times reported elsewhere as contradictory are two segments of one broadcast — both were right. Since the beta opened after the Forever segment, the practical expectation in the beta forums was a flip around 11:00–11:30 AM PDT.
Blizzard announced no preload, but the Battle.net launcher accepts a product flag that forces the download early. Find your Battle.net.exe, then in PowerShell:
& "C:\Program Files (x86)\Battle.net\Battle.net.exe" --game=wow_classic_beta --install
Battle.net opens and begins downloading. You still cannot play early — this puts the files on disk, not an entitlement.
Download size, which Blizzard never announced: ~14–16 GB if you already have Retail installed, ~64–69 GB if you don't. Both figures are widely reported from the live pre-install, and the shared-files explanation is itself corroboration that Forever is a Mainline-family client rather than a Classic one.
⚠️ Caveats: this is a documented launcher flag and community-discovered, not a Blizzard-sanctioned preload — Blizzard could change what that product code serves. One forum poster suspects it may currently pull a different Classic build that gets renamed at launch; that is unconfirmed either way.
Blizzard's access email comes from [email protected] and never contains a link. Anything asking you to click through is not from Blizzard.
Installing and launching
- Not a separate Battle.net tile. It appears as a version dropdown: Battle.net → Games → World of Warcraft → dropdown → World of Warcraft: Forever✅ Settled by Blizzard: select World of Warcraft, then in the Game Version drop-down above the Play button choose the Forever Beta option listed under In Development. (This page previously said sources disagreed — Blizzard’s own beta-live article resolves it.)
- If it doesn't appear after your invite: restart the Battle.net app, then log out and back in.
- Download size: never announced by Blizzard, but reported consistently from the live pre-install — ~14–16 GB with Retail already installed, ~64–69 GB without.
- There is no realm selection. You pick a ruleset, a two-part name and a language preference. Hardcore isn't in the game yet, so expect it greyed out.
- NDA / streaming: none announced, and plainly open. The beta has been streamed since day one — including on Blizzard's own weekly WoW: Forever Podcast with streamers (Xaryu, Sodapoppin, Hammerdance). The beta forum is readable by every active WoW subscriber.
Level cap schedule A
| Phase | Date | Cap | Content added |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | 17 Sep | 20 | New class abilities and talents, new profession items, Hall of Thanes (13–18) and Ruins of Lordaeron (15–20), the Legacy system |
| Phase 2 | 1 Oct with the 1 October build | 30 | Excavation Site: Wetlands (26–31), Razorfen Downs (25+), Uldaman (30+); more abilities, talents and profession items. Blizzard: “Players can now level up to a maximum of level 30” |
| Weekly build | 8 Oct | 30 | City of Dalaran dungeon opened for testing (slipped from the 1 Oct week); dungeon kill XP up ~20%; all beta players granted 16 Legacy Points |
The cap was raised to 30 on 1 October and stayed there to the end; no level-40 phase was announced. A new build with dev notes landed every Thursday (24 Sep and 1, 8 and 15 Oct); the 15 October build, the last with dev notes, carried the racial rework.
At level 20 you had 11 talent points — the 11-point gold-medal talent and nothing beyond. Points are level − 9, so the new 16-point gold talents — Warrior's Spearing Strike, Raging Blows and Vanguard; Mage's Arcane Wrath (Missile Barrage until 15 October), Heating Up (formerly Hot Streak) and Ice Block — are bought at level 25 and were testable from 1 October. At 30 you had 21: a 21-point talent was reachable at exactly 30 if every point was in one tree. The 31-point capstones were not.
Blizzard's launch post named only the two new dungeons. The 1 October dev notes settle the rest: Ragefire Chasm, Wailing Caverns, Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep, the Stockade, Blackfathom Deeps, Gnomeregan, Razorfen Kraul and Scarlet Monastery were “already available”. This page used to call Deadmines and Wailing Caverns unconfirmed. Corrections.
What was testable
Yes
- The full 1–30 levelling experience (cap 30 since 1 Oct) with the new caster quest rewards and caster weapons
- Zephras Isle (1–12) and the Skyborne race — only if you pre-purchased; the race and its zone were pack-gated even in the beta
- Every other race and class, including the six new combos
- Dungeons: Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron, Excavation Site: Wetlands, City of Dalaran, and every classic dungeon up to Razorfen Downs and Uldaman
- Talents to 21 points — the gold-medal talents at 11 and 16 (from level 25), and a 21-point talent at exactly 30 with all points in one tree
- The Legacy system — every beta player was granted 16 Legacy Points on 8 Oct; respec cost 1s at its lowest, decaying hourly (beta pricing)
- Professions and Camping — camp objects unlock at profession skill 20; the Greenhouse Blueprint drops from Shadetooth in Excavation Site B
- The opt-in Cooldown Manager — all classes, racials and trinkets since 8 Oct
- Transmog / Classic Mode — the mode selector is a first-login flow
- The ruleset picker, two-part names, language preference
- Merged hit and crit, Expertise, and the new trinket biome and creature-type effects on low-level gear
- HD/SD toggle, controller support, and the new lighting, water and fog
- All the reworked racials, including the 15 October rework: weapon passives replaced by flat crit stats, Orc Blood Fury on a 3-minute cooldown, Skyborne Wind Blessed at +3% haste A
- Darkspear Islands (probably) — Blizzard promised the new battleground “as the beta continues” and no post said it opened, but the 8 Oct notes fix “the capture point for Shipwreck Cove”, which implied it was at least partly live D
No
- Anything past the 21-point tier, or past level 30 — the 31-point capstones were unreachable at the beta cap
- All three raids — locked until 9 December
- Hardcore — Blizzard says only “sometime after launch”
- The five new dungeons above 33 (Drowned City, Krol'dok, Alcaz Prison, Blackmaw Hold, Shaper's Terrace); Riverglades content, Mount Hyjal, Shen'dralas (reachable on foot at 30, but the content is above the cap)
- Progress carryover — see below
Does anything carry over?
Re-checked 19 September against Blizzard's own beta-live article. The word “reward” appears in it once, in the pre-purchase bundle section. There is no tester title, no achievement, no pet, no head start, and no early-access framing. As the forums put it: “If you were keeping it, they'd call it early access.”
Three things people assume transfer and don't: names (reservation is a separate 27 October event, gated on pre-purchase, not on beta play), collections and achievements (the beta ran on isolated test realms), and gold and materials. What transfers is what you learned.
Blizzard: “At a later point during the test period, we'll also open the servers for several hours so that anyone can access the beta during that window for a Server Slam.” No date and no rewards announced. Diablo IV's Server Slam in 2023 did carry a cosmetic for a level milestone, which makes this the only plausible route by which anything beta-side reaches a live account. Unannounced either way — watch for the follow-up post.
A supposed hidden achievement — “Patience, Young Grasshopper”, granting a miniature Leeroy Jenkins pet — is circulating on SEO aggregators and boosting sites. It appears in no Blizzard post and in no coverage by Wowhead, Icy Veins, Blizzard Watch or Warcraft Tavern. Treat it as fabricated until a primary source appears. It is named here so it can be recognised rather than repeated.
What changed during the beta
The changes that mattered most between the beta opening on 17 September and closing on 23 October, newest first.
- 21–23 Oct
Stress test, then two extra days. The beta went down for the 21 October stress test, came back with a client update, and Blizzard extended it to 23 October, 10:00 a.m. PDT, with world bosses and events in its last hours. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A Source tier B — verbatim reporting or hands-on testing: B
- 15 Oct
Racial rework landed with the 15 October build: the weapon-specialisation passives replaced, Troll Regeneration doubled, and many racial cooldowns and values changed. The same build rebuilt Mage Arcane and Shaman Elemental, cut Ice Lance to +200% vs Frozen and made several group buffs raid-wide, and Blizzard published the Paladin deep dive, the last of the nine. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A Races
- 1 & 8 Oct
Dungeon levelling rebalanced. Dungeon quests paid half the bonus experience they had; a week later kill experience rose by about a fifth and the party-level penalty was fixed. Blizzard's stated aim is dungeon experience per hour roughly equal to questing. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A Dungeons
- 1 & 8 Oct
More dungeons opened for testing: Excavation Site: Wetlands, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman, then the City of Dalaran. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A World & Raids
- 1–7 Oct
PvP model published. The Battle for the Darkspear Islands battleground off Dustwallow Marsh, Alterac Valley returning, and a 14-rank Honor track with blue and epic sets. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A PvP
- 30 Sep–7 Oct
Class deep dives for eight classes (Paladin's followed on 15 October), alongside heavy talent churn: Bloodthirst back to 45% attack power, Hot Streak reworked into Heating Up, Mangle into Primal Bite. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A Classes
- 1 Oct
Beta cap raised from level 20 to 30 for all testers. Nothing from the beta carried over to launch. Source tier A — official Blizzard or live client data: A
Name reservation — 27 October to 3 November
First-come, first-served across an eight-day window, gated on any paid Forever upgrade — including the $29.99 Skyborne Heroic Pack, which grants no beta access but does grant reservation. That is the cheapest route in if the name is all you care about.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Window | 27 Oct – 3 Nov 2026 |
| Who qualifies | Any paid upgrade, Heroic Pack included |
| Time of day on 27 Oct | 1:00 p.m. PDT in North America (Europe: 18:00 CET) — announced 20 October; how to reserve |
| How many characters | Up to three — Blizzard: “You can create and customize up to three characters during this period” |
| Where you do it | No explicit statement — but Blizzard says you create and customize, so it is the in-client character-creation flow, not a website |
This page previously said the character count was “not announced” and dismissed the widely-repeated “up to 3” as unsourced aggregator noise. Blizzard states it plainly, in the pre-purchase article this site already cites for other facts: “Early Name Reservation will be available from October 27 through November 3, 2026, PST, included with any upgrade purchase. You can create and customize up to three characters during this period.”
Worse, our own Overview said “up to 3” while this page denied it — two pages of the same site contradicting each other for two days. Cross-page consistency checks now run on every build. Corrections.
You can customize during the window, not merely claim a name. That retires the usual advice to take default appearances and fix them later — Blizzard's wording is “create and customize”.
The urgency is lower than it feels. Two-part names mean the combination is unique per region, so the usual launch-day scramble mostly evaporates. Take the defaults, bank the name, and fix the character later — the barbershop is confirmed, so nothing about appearance needs deciding in the window.
Blizzard's Create a Name of Your Own article: the full name is unique per region, and either part can be shared — its own example is three characters all surnamed Brightvale. So a family surname across your alts works, and all three reservation slots can carry it. Blizzard publishes no length limit per name field. Both parts are run through the name filter together (splitting a restricted word across them does not pass), and you can hide your own surname on nameplates via Options → Nameplates → My Secondary Name; it still shows in chat. A This page used to list which half carries uniqueness as unresolved. Corrections.
Editions and pricing
Forever is included with an active WoW Subscription or Game Time. Stated in Blizzard's pre-purchase article, the Collector's Edition article and the shop copy. The packs buy a race, cosmetics and beta access — not the game.
| Item | Heroic $29.99 | Epic $59.99 | Collection $79.99 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skyborne race + Zephras Isle starting experience | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cerulean Prideclaw ground mount (riding skill still bought in-game) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shen'dorei Skyseer's Garb transmog set | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Veteran Adventurer's Rucksack back transmog | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shen'dorei Windwell toy | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Skyborne Housing decor — modern WoW only; requires Midnight | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Early Name Reservation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Beta access (from 17 Sep) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Veteran Adventurer's Loyal Companion ground mount | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Veteran Adventurer's Outdoor Wear transmog set | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Zergling, Panda, Diablo and Pachimari pets (Forever-only) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lordaeron & Shen'dorei tabards (Forever-only) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 30 days Game Time (starts 4 Nov) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Warcraft III: Reforged | — | — | ✓ |
| Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom campaign | — | — | ✓ |
| Forsaken & Human Figurine housing decor (modern WoW) | — | — | ✓ |
| Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes | 1 | 3 | 3 |
The Warcraft Forever Collection is limited-time — on sale through 11 January 2027. There is no player housing in Forever; every housing item above is decor for modern WoW, and the shop footnote is explicit: “Housing feature requires World of Warcraft: Midnight (sold separately).”
Collector's Edition
Contains the Warcraft Forever Collection digital code, a 13-inch Dwarf and Bear statue, a Zephras Isle mousepad, art prints, collectible pins and a companion journal. Blizzard's article does not state a price — treat any figure you see as unconfirmed. Some earlier digital purchases may qualify for Battle.net Balance credit when the CE code is redeemed by 31 December 2027. After heavy scalping, Blizzard restocked extra English-language CEs from 24 September (NA, UK, EU, AU/NZ) — restock orders ship February 2027, limited to one per household on the Gear Store. The price is still not in Blizzard's text.
This is the first time a WoW playable race has been sold separately from an expansion, and the press noticed. Massively OP: “Fans raise a ruckus over the paywalling of World of Warcraft Forever's Skyborne 'cash elves'.” MMORPG.com's headline calls the race “locked behind a $30 purchase.”
Two roadmap claims that are wrong
- “The beta runs to 22 October.” Blizzard's own pre-purchase article and the shop footnotes both said 21 October, stated twice; several outlets carried the 22nd. Blizzard then extended it to 23 October (announced 20 October).
- “3-day early access with the Epic Edition.” Contradicted by Blizzard's article and the shop comparison table, neither of which offers early access. There is no early access.
Client and UI
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| HD/SD toggle | Confirmed Toggles original Classic visuals and animations against an updated HD presentation — for characters, models and the world. HD character models get restored Classic animations |
| Graphics | New lighting, fog, water and moonlight-through-trees. Shown side-by-side in the “Evolving a Timeless World” panel |
| Controller support | Confirmed Full gamepad support at release — the first WoW built with it in mind. Xbox controllers were on every BlizzCon demo station |
| UI codebase | 🔴 Modern. Forever runs the Mainline/Midnight UI architecture, not the Classic 1.12 UI |
| “Classic Mode” | Partially confirmed. There is a mode selector at first login (rendered as Classic or Enhanced) and it governs transmog on/off, changeable later at an NPC. A single combined switch literally named “Classic Mode” is not confirmed |
| System requirements | GPU floor official Blizzard: AMD GCN1 / NVIDIA Maxwell / Intel Skylake or newer, with the full minimum spec “in the Battle.net Shop”. Icy Veins publishes Min: Win10 64-bit, 6-core 4.0 GHz, DX12 4 GB GPU, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD; Rec: Win11, 8 P-cores 5.2 GHz, DX12 8 GB GPU, 16 GB RAM B (not re-checked against the Shop). Blizzard also concedes the install is “larger than intended” and is being reduced |
| UI added during the beta | Discord voice for party, an inspect window, View Talents in the target menu, quest types and levels in the tracker, Legacy challenge click-through, gamepad edit mode, and Group Finder postings with a voice-mode option A |
| Layering | Exists Changing party composition can move you to a different world instance; since 1 Oct party leaders are no longer transferred |
Addons and the API
Forever is a Midnight-family client, not a Classic client. Blizzard, via the WoW UI Discord: “WoW Forever shares Mainline WoW's UI architecture, including the vast majority of APIs available in 12.1.5. … Forever and modern WoW (Midnight) are two game types within the Mainline code family: Camelot (to be renamed before launch) and Standard. The addon disarmament changes introduced in Midnight, including secrets, will also be active in Forever.”
| Consequence | Detail |
|---|---|
| Addons are allowed | Confirmed on the Blizzard forums: “They are allowed. It's already decided” |
| 🔴 Questie, Atlas and AtlasLoot are not just wrong-ecosystem — they are unnecessary | Probed against the live client 2026-09-25: Encounter Journal present, quest POI present, guild bank present, achievements present. The base UI already does what those three addons existed to add. The real remaining gaps are node tracking and mail handling, which Retail never solved either |
| Classic addons will NOT just work | Wowhead: “Many addons that were built for WoW: Classic will likely need to be remade, but many current Midnight addons can likely be ported over more easily.” Questie, Atlas, ElvUI Classic and WeakAuras Classic are the wrong ecosystem |
| WeakAuras is very likely absent | The disarmament/secrets API is what stopped its development before Midnight |
| No combat automation | Lead encounter designer Mike Nuthals confirmed the in-combat addon disarmament carries over, so “players will not have access to those kind of computational add-ons.” Also confirmed: no one-button rotation |
| One API target, not two | Future changes land in Midnight and Forever simultaneously |
| CurseForge | Updated CurseForge now has a “Forever” flavour, game version 1.60.1. camelot is the client's game type, not the CurseForge flavour B |
Forever's UI and API are Mainline, but its client line is 1.60.x with interface 16xxx — it shares a major version with Classic Era. Blizzard is even reusing product codes: wow_classic_beta served the Forever beta. Any build tooling, CI check or TOC parser that classifies a client by major version alone will file Forever as Classic Era and be wrong about every API it has. This is already breaking tooling in the wild. The flavour token is @version-forever@ / --game-version forever. The exact interface number read from the beta client is 16001 (1.60.1), unchanged across every beta build so far, and the client game type is camelot — Blizzard's “name subject to change”.
If you're writing an addon
Start from your Retail source tree, not a Classic rewrite. Then do two things in the client:
Read the real interface number. Open any Blizzard addon's .toc in the beta install (Interface/AddOns/Blizzard_*/) and read the ## Interface: line. That settles what your TOC needs, more reliably than anything published.
Run /api in-game for Blizzard_APIDocumentation and diff the exposed surface against Retail. That's the fastest way to find what Forever strips. (The Cooldown Manager question is answered: it exists, opt-in under Options → Gameplay Enhancement.)
The web API
Different story. Blizzard's Game Data and Profile APIs would need a Forever namespace; Classic already has several. No Forever namespace has been announced, nothing in Blizzard's API forums mentions it, and the developer docs are unchanged.
Two wrinkles for whenever it lands: Forever is realmless, so every endpoint keyed on realm slug needs rethinking, and two-part names break the character/{realm}/{name} URL shape outright. It probably won't be a drop-in.
Several sites state that Forever is built on the Classic Era 1.15 API surface, so “Era addons port and Retail ones don't.” That is backwards, and it comes from exactly the version-number trap above — the client line looks like Classic Era while the APIs behind it are Mainline. Anyone reasoning from the version string gets this precisely inverted.
What's actually been datamined as of 17 September
The beta client was live and dataminable. Early extraction produced assets and systems — raid tier set models for all nine classes, Forsaken Paladin mounts, 100+ creature models, Skyborne customisations, loading screens, world maps, reputation names, gear set bonuses and the full list of Legacy Point sources.
Full talent trees for all nine classes are readable from the live calculator, along with the complete camp-object set and crafted-food tables. Every class page now carries its real tree. ⚠️ Wowhead still stamps tooltip values as placeholders, so structure and tier positions are reliable where individual numbers may not be.
Checklist
- Opting in was free at the Forever page: a lottery that cost nothing.
- For certainty the Epic Pack, $59.99, guaranteed access; Heroic did not. Epic also includes the Skyborne race, so the beta decision and the Skyborne decision were one purchase.
- In Battle.net the beta sat under In Development in the Game Version drop-down above Play.
- The 15 October dev notes were the last, and they changed the racials: picks are in each class page's Races table, every racial on Races.
- Don't pre-load Classic addons. Midnight addon habits transfer better than any Classic addon does.
- The ceiling was level 30 from 1 October until the beta closed on 23 Oct.
- Nothing carried over. It was a test, not a head start.
Synced to the knowledge base (400.10.2, refreshed 9 Oct) · Last updated 9 October 2026 · Beta, cap 30