What Kotaku learned at BlizzCon: hands-on and designer interview

Updated 2026-09-15

Kotaku's Rebekah Valentine covered Forever three times during BlizzCon 2026: the reveal, a two-hour hands-on, and an interview with Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones and Lead Encounter Designer Mike Nuthals. Below is what those pieces establish, condensed and cross-checked against our own data. All credit goes to Kotaku — read the originals for the full context:

• World Of Warcraft: Forever Announced As The Vanilla WoW Reboot We've Been Waiting For — Kotaku, Sept 12, 2026
• Hands-On With World Of Warcraft: Forever, An Alternate Universe Worth Exploring — Kotaku, Sept 13, 2026
• 8 New Things We Just Learned About World Of Warcraft: Forever From Its Lead Designers — Kotaku, Sept 14, 2026

From the designer interview (Sept 14)

1. No Season of Discovery-style role swaps at launch

Shaman tanks, mage healers and other rune-enabled roles from Season of Discovery are not in Forever at launch. Jones told Kotaku that SoD's design choices, measured against Forever's pillars, "don't make sense in terms of the simplicity or the identity" the team wants for some classes; the baseline is closer to Classic than SoD was. He did add that the team wants to keep the conversation open with players who care about unusual roles.

The article also notes that abilities such as Spirit Weapons and Molten Blast had appeared on WoW fan sites over the weekend, while the shaman tree Kotaku played at BlizzCon looked closer to Classic. Our shaman calculator is built from a captured demo build — every talent links to its screenshot — so treat anything not in Classic as subject to change until the beta client is out.

2. Every raid tier has a 10-player and a 20-player raid

No flex raiding. Nuthals confirmed that each tier will always include at least one 10-player and one 20-player raid, sometimes plus a 40-player one; a 10-player guild can stay a 10-player guild "forever". This matches the launch tier we list in Dungeons & raids: Barrow Deeps (10), Hyjal Summit (20), Onyxia's Lair (40).

3. Mount training costs more gold

The cost of riding has moved from the mount itself onto the training, so that a mount at level 40 still represents time and effort. Jones and Nuthals declined to comment on Skyborne pricing or future paid content — monetization is not their call.

4. Meeting stones don't summon — bring a Warlock

Meeting stones still stand at dungeon entrances but only open the new Looking for Group listing (post a group or find one; no automatic matchmaking). Travelling to the instance is on you, unless a Warlock in the party summons.

5. Add-ons: retail-style combat restrictions

No specifics yet, but Nuthals said the retail "in-combat add-on disarmament" carries over: add-ons that compute and automate marking or communication in combat won't be available.

6. No one-button rotation

The retail assisted-rotation feature is not coming to Forever.

7. PvP has a ranking track

Honor from battlegrounds and PvP content feeds a ranking system; a full rank ladder up to rank 14 can be climbed within a patch cycle, with cosmetic rewards and stat-bearing PvP armor. Darkspear Islands is the new battleground alongside the vanilla ones.

8. What "Forever" means

Level 60 stays the cap and content grows horizontally. Jones described the name as a promise that time invested in a character keeps mattering, with the Legacy system encouraging alts — see Legacy & campsites.

From the hands-on (Sept 13)

Two hours on the show floor as a Tauren Shaman, a Skyborne Elf, and a media group in a mid-level dungeon. Details worth knowing:

• Mulgore is the same, but not: new quests are woven between the classic ones — a profession tutorial, a short errand for a lost mother, carrying a flame between camps for An'she. Tauren get Plainsrunning as a racial passive (also on our Tauren page).
• Comforts that made it in: combined bags and UI customization; opt-in transmog (you see it only if you use it). Frictions that stayed: buying every new skill rank, long cast times, mana and threat management.
• Looking for Group: a listing board, not a matchmaker.
• Skyborne Elves: a "less gritty" Horde option with a starting area of crumbling ruins and wind — see The Skyborne.
• The Drowned City: starts like a variation on Zul'Farrak, then turns into underwater corridors with naga and murlocs; eight or nine bosses; a shark in the central courtyard pool ended the media run. Classic-style difficulty: not mechanically hard, unforgiving on mana and threat. Our dungeon list has its level range.
• Her open concerns: no rune-style discovery system, and 40-player raids for guilds that sit between sizes (see point 2 above for Blizzard's answer).

From the reveal (Sept 12)

The launch package as Kotaku reported it from the opening ceremony: three new zones plus several overhauled ones, over 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids, one new battleground, the Skyborne Elves, new reputations and pets, and updated world visuals — all inside a permanent level-60 cap. The trailer opens Dalaran and shows Nordrassil and the Skyborne's sky kingdom. Beta the following Thursday (Sept 17), release Nov 4, 2026. Our Getting started and Roadmap guides carry the full dates.

Sources

All facts on this page are attributed to the three Kotaku articles by Rebekah Valentine linked at the top; quotations are theirs. Where we link our own pages it is to show how the information is reflected here, not to replace the original reporting.