World of Warcraft: Forever Review – Here We Go Again

World of Warcraft has been one of the most recognizable and popular MMORPGs for more than two decades. With a main timeline that has run since the game’s beginning and many iterations of its classic version, Blizzard has tried to keep both modern and old-school players happy, but fans have been asking for something for years. A “Classic Plus” version of WoW that keeps the spirit of the vanilla game while expanding and adding to it instead of going the same route the modern game took.

World of Warcraft: Forever is Blizzard’s answer to the fans’ request for a Classic Plus. It’s based on the classic version of the game. It runs on a modern engine with quality-of-life changes, class balance, and tons of new content across all levels. If you are already a fan of World of Warcraft, you’re probably already playing it. But if you’ve never played WoW before, your friends are going back to the game after years and asking you to join, or if you haven’t played for a long time yourself and are wondering if you should come back, this review is written to help you decide.

To get an immediate idea of what is new to World of Warcraft: Forever, and how it might look to a new player, I decided to make my first character a Sky Elf, the new paid race for the game that gets its own starting zone and leveling journey for the first few hours of the game. Also, after years of playing WoW, I tend to use a few addons and customize the UI for my own playstyle, but to see what the game will look like for a player’s first introduction, I played this character with no addons and most of the UI settings left at default. Classic and Retail (the modern version of the game) have vastly different new player experiences, and both have their own problems, in my opinion. Classic is known to be a simpler and more casual experience, but it’s also a product of its time with minimal guidance and hand-holding, so it can be hard to get started for those unfamiliar with the genre. Retail has a much more robust and guided tutorial, but it has had two decades of updates and new systems, and it introduces them to the player at an overwhelmingly fast pace once they finish the tutorial.

WoW: Forever‘s new player experience sits in a sweet spot between the two versions of the game. It has the slow and easy-to-learn feel of Classic, with some of the modern conveniences and tutorials of the Retail game. If you choose the modern UI settings when you create your character, the default settings are perfectly suitable for the first couple of hours while you learn the basic mechanics without needing to worry about customizing the interface. Between all the different versions of the game, I do believe Forever has the smoothest introduction that is balanced between teaching the player the basics and letting them explore at their own pace.

The new paid race, Skyborne Elfves, had caused some controversy within the community before the game’s release. Fans were worried that they didn’t fit the aesthetic and vibe of Classic WoW. The game offers both standard and high-definition models for characters, and the new Skyborne currently don’t have an SD model. They can look a bit jarring if you prefer the old-school character looks, so you might have to wait a bit for Blizzard to implement new SD models for them. But if you like the HD models, their aesthetics, while unique, don’t feel out of place in the world. Their lore is also a fitting addition to the elves of Azeroth. They are descendants of the High Elves who took shelter in the elemental plane of air once they lost their source of arcane magic. In the current timeline, they are separated into two factions: the Windshapers and the High Order. Windshapers still reject the use of arcane magic, prefer to harness natural and shamanic powers, and join the Horde. High Order Skyborne, on the other hand, want to reclaim their arcane prowess and join the Kirin Tor and the Alliance.

I played through the quests of the new starting zone with a High Order Skyborne Mage. The quest design in the starting zone is decent, but a few of them feel a bit different from the Classic quests. A notable difference between Classic and Retail’s quest designs is that in Classic, most of the story is told through environmental details and our actions, while Retail tends to lean more into cinematics and cutscenes to lore dump. There were a handful of quests in the Skyborne starting zone that had us sit and listen to NPCs write the lore to us in chat bubbles. Most of the quests were great and fitting to the Classic world, but these couple of instances still stood out to me as they felt more in line with the modern game’s design philosophy. Despite that, I enjoyed learning about the new race and their conflict, exploring their floating home world, meeting other players, and finally descending into Azeroth.

Once I left the new starting zone, I wanted to play the game how I usually play WoW. I downloaded a few addons, customized the UI, and created a new character, one that I always like to play in Classic, to compare how the game feels compared to my past experiences. I created a Night Elf Hunter, as I was specifically looking forward to the new class balances and changes, and to see how the leveling journey has changed in an environment that I was more familiar with. Leveling through the Night Elf starting zone felt nostalgic and welcoming, with a few new quests that delightfully surprised me. There are more than 1000 new quests added to WoW: Forever, and as I played the game, I could feel two types of quests. The first type was those added to quest chains that felt unfinished or ended anticlimactically. They expand on existing NPC stories and areas already in the Classic game, and most were seamlessly added into the world in a way that sometimes I couldn’t tell if a quest was new or if I had somehow never encountered it before in my years of playing the game.

The second type of quests were added to make the transition between leveling zones smoother. A small problem with Classic was that once you finished all of the quests in a zone, you might still be a bit too low-level to progress to a higher-level zone and had to travel long distances or kill lower-level mobs until you gained a bit more experience. There are tons of these quests added in different zones to make the leveling journey not necessarily faster, but more consistent. There are whole new zones added for level ranges that felt a bit too grindy in Classic, such as Riverglades, covering the late 30s and early 40s, where we didn’t have a lot of good options to level in Classic WoW.

I played my hunter for about a week and leveled up to 40, which is about halfway to the endgame. I focused on finding new quests, doing the new dungeons, and going to new zones. While I did find a few nitpicky moments in the Skyborne starting zone when it comes to quest and world design, I have no complaints regarding the new content added across the larger world. The new dungeons are fun and interesting, with their own quests to expand old lore or add new stories. The new zones are very well-designed and fleshed out, and there’s a new battleground for a fresh PvP experience as well. With the new content added in the earlier levels, I am excited to reach max level and see what the new raids and endgame content look like.

One of the biggest draws of Forever for me was the changes to class balance and professions. Professions have received a huge glow-up, making them more engaging and rewarding across all levels. I love the class changes specifically done to hunters, but I have heard a lot of negative feedback regarding some caster classes too. As it stands, I think the changes have been a net positive, and the shortcomings won’t hinder the game too much. Unlike Classic, which was supposed to preserve every aspect of the original game, Forever will be a live-service experience with balance patches and changes across its lifetime.

I have tried to be as unbiased as possible while playing the game for the first week and judging it on its own merit and not through my nostalgia. The original World of Warcraft became a cultural phenomenon for a reason, and Forever is trying to bring it back to modern standards while still preserving the identity of the old-school MMO experience. At least in the early and mid-game, it has succeeded in that endeavor, and I am hopeful that the quality will keep up in the late game and through the development of the game in the future. If you want to try World of Warcraft: Forever, you can do so just by getting the monthly subscription, and you don’t need to buy the additional Skyborne packs if you don’t particularly like the race and its lore. Forever has been my best experience in World of Warcraft in years, and it’s the best time to join if you have ever been interested in trying or getting back to the game.

Nima reviewed World of Warcraft: Forever on PC with his own bought copy. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing, and our score will not be changed.