BlizzCon 2026: World of Warcraft Forever’s deep-dive panel talks group play
The big reveal of World of Warcraft Forever has definitely been a seismic impact, and it seems inevitable that folks are going to have a lot of questions about this extending beyond…
The big reveal of World of Warcraft Forever has definitely been a seismic impact, and it seems inevitable that folks are going to have a lot of questions about this extending beyond this weekend. But it’s also clear that the developers are aware of that, with a second panel today covering a deeper dive into the mechanics and plans for what amounts to the reboot alternate universe. Or is it an interquel? Or a re-imagining? There are a lot of possible terms here, let’s be honest.
Kicking off the panel was associate production director Clay Stone, who promised more reveals through other panels running today, but this particular panel would go deep into the additions, changes, and updates along with the philosophy of all of the above. It’s all about features, systems, combat, items, and the like. He then handed the mic over to senior game designer Josh Greenfield to discuss the new features in greater depth.
Greenfield talked about how part of the foundation is to create serendipitous interactions between players. You meet another player in the wild, and to make that a useful feature, that led to camping. You have a basic campfire that allows up to three crafted objects to be placed by players, with each tradeskill object offering different buffs and features. Each buff lasts for one hour, and this adds extra viability to tradeskills. Tradeskills also have over 600 new recipes across varied levels and skill ranges, many existing ones have been overhauled, and cooking and food have been further improved to add a small XP buff as well as longer buffs. New recipes and materials are meant to be continuously added as well.
Transmog was next on the list, as the designers know some players have issues with it. You can opt out of transmog by speaking to NPCs, and you can also choose Classic or Enhanced as soon as you log in for the first time. But letting people opt out doesn’t change how the system influences player behavior. Do you have to worry about people rolling for gear they don’t need? Nope; you’ll get appearance unlocks automatically from BoP pickups when they drop in the dungeon, so everyone gets it. (Epic loot is not included in this for people who go into raiding.) Transmog only allows you to apply the same armor type over the same type of armor, but you can indeed apply a transmog for multiple possibilities (so you can have a saved set with a cloth chest, mail chest, and leather chest depending on what gear you’re wearing). You can also hide or view backs and helms via transmog or via the normal interface, depending on preference.
Ana Resendez, lead software engineer, took the stage next to talk server infrastructure and the legacy system. The new legacy system gives you a variety of legacy challenges which you can complete for legacy points. But those points are spent on trees – Professions, Adventure, and Resourcefulness. These do things like increase the rested experience cap in the Adventure tree, increase scarce materials in Professions, or no longer require reagents for spells in Resourcefulness. The points are account-wide, so each character gets to customize their own experience. You have 16 points to spend at launch (with 65 total available), with a legacy reward track for cosmetics for your total points.
Resendez notes that mounts are going to work like in Burning Crusade, with the main cost being the skill. She also notes there will be more trees and potential rewards moving forward. She then moved on to the server infrastructure. The team noticed that players gravitated toward certain realms, especially very populated ones. The net result will be that WoW Forever will be realmless.
That doesn’t mean everyone is going to be on one realm; you choose one ruleset (normal, PvP, roleplay, or the later Hardcore option), and you will need to stay within that ruleset for grouping and play. (Hardcore characters who die may be transferred to another ruleset.) Your characters will also have two names, instead of just one. Players will be able to specify their preferred language, and mechanisms to hopefully encourage faction balance.
Moving on to combat, classes, items, and talents, principal game designer Kris Zierhut took the stage. The goal is to keep classes simple and distinct, with more tactical and slower paced group gameplay and a focus on crowd control and threat management. The team also wanted to un-solve the game, meaning changes to different stats and items. Hit and critical chance have both been merged for all attacks, weapon skill has been rebalanced (the amounts have been lowered on items but it’s still in-game), bonus healing adds bonus spell damage, and stats that weren’t in the original game are being added. Caster weapons have bonus spell damage, trinkets are unique and more varied, items can have biome-based or species-based effects, and stats like expertise have been added in while a bunch of old items have been retooled and rebalanced.
Racial abilities have been revamped – two active abilities, two passive abilities – and there are six new class and race combinations (Dwarf Shaman, Undead Paladin, Human Hunter, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock, and Gnome Priest). The new racial balance was meant to make each race feel unique and to make each one feel useful for all classes and specs. Many talents have been updated and improved; better buff talents (like Improved Battle Shout) are now baseline, with the goal being that every single talent tree should be a viable option for dungeons or raids. The panel showed a deep dive look for Paladin, which adds Holy Strike to the class lineup while Judgment no longer consumes your seal. Seal of Fury is the new tanking option, and its Judgment is the new taunt.
The new talents showed off improved powers for Holy Paladin (now able to gain a benefit from Spirit and making Holy Shock an earlier build element), Protection Paladin (restores mana with blocks, gain absorb shields, and get extra threat via Holy Strike), and Retribution Paladin (refresh judgments with Holy Strike, gain increased spell damage with Intellect, and a benefit to seal twisting). The goal was to give them new tools while retaining certain weaknesses (limited range, no interrupts, now tools to slow things).
This wrapped up the panel. It’s clear there are a lot of changes coming with this version, and that the differences will provide a game that is very different from the existing Classic experience while still trying to retain the same basic flavor once the beta starts up soon.
source: TwitchOur BlizzCon coverage thus far: