Watch the cinematic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXaXYxcbA6A
Blizzard has spent twenty-odd years teaching players that you can never go home again, then charging them a monthly fee to try. World of Warcraft: Forever, the long-rumoured “Classic Plus” announced at BlizzCon in September, finally opens its gates on Wednesday 4 November at 3pm Pacific time, which is 11pm here in Blighty. Anybody with an active subscription or game time gets in without paying extra.
The idea is to take the original 2004 Azeroth, the one fondly remembered by everyone who lost a university year to Molten Core, and build onwards from there rather than rushing on to the next expansion. Forever is set after the new Warcraft III: Reforged campaign, Forsaken Kingdom, and before the Molten Core era, inside what the developers call a little time bubble that sits apart from the continuity of modern WoW. So no Shadowlands, no Dragonflight, and no need to remember who is currently cross with whom.
There is a good deal that is new. Blizzard promises more than 1,000 new quests, nine dungeons and new or expanded zones including Mount Hyjal, the Riverglades and Shen’dralas. Raiders get Onyxia’s Lair at the original 40 players, plus two new raids, the 20-player Hyjal Summit and the 10-player Barrow Deeps, expected to unlock in December. The announcement cinematic is a neat piece of fan service: the dwarf hunter from the original 2004 trailer heads down his mountain by a different path and finds the gates of Dalaran opening for him. Same world, different door. For launch week Blizzard has added WARPATH, an animated music video set to “End of You” by Poppy, Amy Lee and Courtney LaPlante, for those who like their nostalgia loud.
Then there are the Skyborne, the first new playable race, descended from Highborne elven exiles who struck a pact with the wind elementals of Skywall and start out on their own patch of sky, Zephras Isle. They can join either faction, with Alliance Skyborne able to play mages and Horde ones shamans. The catch is that the Skyborne are not in the base game: you need the Skyborne Heroic Pack, reported at $29.99, to roll one. So Azeroth’s newest elves come with a cover charge, which is, in fairness, very elven.
Blizzard is also adding transmog with an off switch, for purists who believe a level 60 warrior should look like he got dressed at a jumble sale. The real question is whether a forever version of a game whose magic lay in everyone being new at the same time can bottle that feeling again, or whether it will be min-maxed to within an inch of its life by Thursday lunchtime. Here at SFcrowsnest we suspect the latter, and we’ll be queueing anyway.
Join the conversation (0)