BlizzCon 2026 Reveal

0:10 World of Warcraft: Forever was revealed at the BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony on Sep 12, 2026, with New Horizons, a cinematic trailer that speaks of Azeroth's "untold stories" and "lands unexplored". Kotaku describes it as showing the dwarf hunter from the original World of Warcraft trailer taking a different path, a Dalaran that had been sealed away, Nordrassil the World Tree, and a sky kingdom of a new kind of elf. At the same ceremony Blizzard announced a beta from Sep 17 and launch on Nov 4, 2026. Over the weekend it put a playable demo on the show floor, had creators play two new dungeons live on stage, and explained the game in five panels. Players had long talked about such a game as "Classic+"; Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas called the project "both the best kept and worst kept secret of the summer".

Quick facts

The opening ceremony

0:01 A gameplay trailer followed the cinematic, promising the stories "we haven't heard" between "the well-worn pages of the history we know". Blizzard's summary of the ceremony presented Forever as a third World of Warcraft experience beside modern WoW and Classic, in which players "carve new paths and explore unseen corners of Azeroth during the Vanilla era", and counted three new zones, over 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids and the new Skyborne race. Game Informer's report that day named the zones as Mount Hyjal, Zephras Isle and The Riverglades, and listed new lighting and global illumination, volumetric particle effects, a new water renderer and real-time shadows.

33:52 The trailer's lighting was chosen for effect. Associate Production Director Clay Stone admitted on the What's Next panel that "we went pretty hard" and that "not every zone is going to be set at sunrise or sunset all the time". The team believes Classic's art style is "timeless", he said, so its focus was not on changing the art but on environmental effects: rivers that now flow in Elwynn Forest, fog rolling into Duskwood, moonlight through the trees of Ashenvale. See Graphics and Visuals.

6:35 Blizzard also released Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom, a new campaign that leads into Forever's story, the same day. On its own panel, project lead Brad Chan announced patch 3.0 with new Definitive Edition graphics for everyone who owns Reforged, said "this is all available today", and pointed visitors to 100 PCs set up to play it at the show.

The show-floor demo

24:15 Forever was playable at BlizzCon from the first day. Ending her tour of the new dungeons on the What's Next panel, Lead Software Engineer Nora Mills sent the audience to the World of Warcraft demo area to "check out the Drowned City today right here on the show floor". Clay Stone later described the demo as a choice between the start of the Skyborne's leveling journey and a run through the Drowned City with friends, and controller play could be tried there "in an in-development state".

1:18:30 The Drowned City is a leveling dungeon for levels 35 to 40, and Rowan Ryder, a senior encounter designer, said demo characters were level 38. Unlike Dalaran or the Ruins of Lordaeron, familiar places given a new spin, it is a new location: a troll city risen from the ocean floor off the western coast of Stranglethorn Vale. See Dungeons.

2:15 GameSpot, which played the demo, was struck by the dungeon's first view, "this giant fish skeleton" in an open-air troll dungeon, and by lighting and water effects that do not "really look like anything in WoW Classic" while keeping "that true kind of classic feel".

0:17 The BlizzCon build also showed Forever's first-launch choices. Xaryu, streaming his first session, was asked to pick a starting experience: "Classic", described on screen as a more traditional presentation with simpler visuals, standard character models, fewer modern interface features and less automated guidance, or an enhanced one, with separate settings for transmog, a single bag, quest points of interest, and standard or high-definition models.

2:08 Some creators had seen Forever before the reveal. Xaryu told his chat that "Blizzard did invite some of us to come check some stuff out", though he could not share details and said he knew "a lot less than you guys think I do".

The Creator Showcase

1:04 Blizzard's Creator Showcase on Sep 12 put creators on stage to play Forever live, starting with a dungeon nobody else could play at the show. With queues already forming for the demo, the hosts and two senior encounter designers from the Classic team, Jay and Rowan Ryder, who had worked on Season of Discovery's Karazhan Crypts and Scarlet Enclave, promised something "absolutely exclusive, unshown, unrevealed": the City of Dalaran.

3:28 Jay revealed that Dalaran belongs to the Alliance: "you are the only faction allowed in this city", and completing the dungeon unlocks it, with "some special stuff for mages". Later in the show the developers added that the Violet Citadel now opens onto a new area overlooking Lordamere Lake that is exclusive to the Skyborne, who arrive by sky ship from Zephras Isle.

12:30 After Tyler and Xaryu, introduced as having led a gnome-only Hardcore Molten Core raid while doing a handstand, the showcase brought out the multi-platinum artist bbno$, AnnieFuchsia, who reached level 60 in Hardcore "using a console controller", and Guzu.

37:30 On stage the group got separated, argued over threat and wiped. "They got confident," the commentary said. "They walked into a room that they weren't prepared for and it got the better of them." Earlier the designers had pointed to the dungeon's resistances and immunities, which Forever takes "very seriously": mechanical creatures and elementals do not bleed, and arcane enemies are immune to arcane damage. The group went on to finish Dalaran, then tried the Drowned City at level 40.

The panels

5:11 What's Next, on Sep 12, brought together Hazzikostas, Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones, Nora Mills and Clay Stone. It told how Forever came about, set out the design pillars, introduced Mount Hyjal, Shen'dralas, the Riverglades, Zephras Isle and the Skyborne, walked through the new dungeons, raids and battleground, previewed camping, Legacy, transmog and the choice of HD or SD models, showed the roadmap and announced Hardcore. "We're not looking beyond Azeroth for the next chapter," it said, but "deeper into the world players already fell in love with". See Development History and Release and Roadmap.

0:24 The Deep Dive, at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Sep 13, was, Clay Stone said, "our first of four WoW Forever panels today". With Senior Game Designer Josh Greenfield, Lead Software Engineer Ana Resendez and Principal Game Designer Kris Zierhut, he went through camping, trade skills, the Legacy system, the new realm structure, transmog, combat, items, racials, classes and talents, with the Paladin as the worked example. See Camping, Legacy, Rulesets and Classes and Talents.

0:27 Found Photographs brought Josh Greenfield, who helps lead content and narrative direction, and Evan, lead content designer on the Classic team, to explain how the team writes Forever's stories: the "found photographs" idea, Forever's own continuity, the three kinds of new content, the Riverglades, the Forsaken Paladins and the history of the Skyborne.

2:37 Evolving a Timeless World brought Matt Heyman, a lead environment artist, and Jason Scott, a lead software engineer on the graphics and engine team, to show how Azeroth's fog, lighting, shadows and water were reworked while keeping the look players remember, starting from Duskwood.

0:01 "Go Again!", the Hardcore panel, brought Nora Mills, Kris Zierhut and Josh Greenfield together to tell the story of WoW Classic Hardcore, from players' own one-life challenges to official realms, and to preview Forever's Hardcore ruleset, due after launch.

After BlizzCon

Blizzard held a live World of Warcraft: Forever Q&A on Thursday, Sep 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. PDT on the official Warcraft Twitch and YouTube channels, with questions taken on the World of Warcraft forums, and the beta opened the same day; it was set to run until Oct 21, 2026, and Blizzard later extended it to Oct 23. The first reactions to the reveal, from Kotaku's view that the release date was "sooner than I think anyone expected" to creators' hands-on impressions, are collected on Reception.

Frequently asked questions

When was World of Warcraft: Forever announced? On Sep 12, 2026, at the BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony.

Could people play Forever at BlizzCon? Yes. The show-floor demo offered the start of the Skyborne's leveling journey or the Drowned City dungeon, and controller play in an in-development state.

Which World of Warcraft: Forever panels were held? What's Next on Sep 12, then the Deep Dive, Found Photographs, Evolving a Timeless World and the "Go Again!" Hardcore panel on Sep 13.

What did the reveal trailer show? According to Kotaku, the dwarf hunter from the original World of Warcraft trailer taking a different path, a previously sealed Dalaran, Nordrassil, and a sky kingdom of a new kind of elf.

What was shown in the Creator Showcase? Creators played the City of Dalaran, an Alliance-only dungeon not in the public demo, and then the Drowned City.

Sources

• The World of Warcraft: Forever Beta Now Live, Blizzard Entertainment, Sep 17, 2026
• Everything Announced at BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony, Blizzard Entertainment, Sep 12, 2026
• World of Warcraft at BlizzCon 2026: Discover What's Next, Blizzard Entertainment, September 2026
• Carve a New Path with World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard Entertainment, September 2026
• World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive Panel Recap, Blizzard Entertainment, September 2026
• World Of Warcraft: Forever Revealed As WoW's Rumored Classic+, Kotaku, Sep 12, 2026
• Blizzard Announces World Of Warcraft: Forever, Expanding Vanilla WoW With New Zones, Raids, 1,000 New Quests, Game Informer, Sep 12, 2026
• World of Warcraft: Forever | New Horizons | Cinematic Trailer and World of Warcraft: Forever | Gameplay Trailer, World of Warcraft, Sep 12, 2026 (videos)
• World of Warcraft: Forever - What's Next Panel | BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft: Forever - Deep Dive | BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft: Forever - Creator Showcase | BlizzCon 2026 and Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom - What's Next Panel | BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft, Sep 13, 2026 (videos)
• World of Warcraft: Forever - Evolving a Timeless World | BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft, Sep 14, 2026 (video)
• World of Warcraft: Forever - Found Photographs | BlizzCon 2026 and "Go Again!" World of Warcraft: Forever Hardcore Panel | BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft, Sep 15, 2026 (videos)
• WoW Forever Preview Impressions | Blizzcon 2026, GameSpot, Sep 14, 2026 (video)
• Xaryu's First Time ACTUALLY Playing WoW Forever, Xaryu, Sep 13, 2026 (video)