‘World of Warcraft: Forever’ Launches Today as Blizzard Developers Say They Had to ‘Unlearn’ Modern WoW
by uGames Editors
'World of Warcraft: Forever' (Image: Blizzard)
Blizzard’s long-awaited World of Warcraft: Forever launches globally on Wednesday, and one of its lead developers says making it meant returning to what made the original 2004 game great.
“Some of us had worked on the modern game for a long time, myself included,” lead encounter designer Michael Nuthals told Engadget. “I come from modern, and it’s almost like unlearning what you have learned.”
Announced at BlizzCon earlier this year, Forever reimagines World of Warcraft and builds on the game’s “Classic” era. It takes players back to Azeroth, the setting of the original game, and asks a “what if” question: What if Blizzard had kept expanding Azeroth instead of sending players to Draenor and beyond with The Burning Crusade and the expansions that followed?
Forever includes more than 1,000 new quests, many of them designed to continue story threads left unfinished in the original game. Players can also explore new areas within Azeroth, including Mount Hyjal, the site of one of Warcraft III‘s pivotal battles, along with new dungeons and raids.
Blizzard has also rebalanced the game’s classes and items and built a new global illumination lighting system to make the world feel more atmospheric. In a more controversial move, Forever adds a new playable race, the Skyborne Elves, who were not part of the original game.
The project answers years of requests from players for a “Classic+” experience after Blizzard rereleased the original game in 2019. Forever recently completed the largest beta in World of Warcraft‘s history, even though players had to buy a premium bundle, starting at $60, to take part.
“I see it more as an opportunity — an opportunity to engage, to listen and show that we’re listening,” Nuthals said of the high expectations.
To capture the feel of the original, Nuthals, who has been at Blizzard for 13 years, said the encounter team replayed classic content every Thursday morning. The team would run an original dungeon like The Deadmines, then jump into a new Forever dungeon such as Ruins of Lordaeron to see whether the two felt connected.
“We wanted it to feel like you wouldn’t even know — like it was made in 2004,” he said.
Nuthals said the team designed encounters around three types of challenges: fights that reward gear and class skill, fights that test movement, and fights that test players’ planning and understanding of mechanics. He added that Classic players love to “overprepare, then I come in and crush the content.”
A key part of Forever‘s design is what Blizzard calls “horizontal” progression. The level cap will stay at 60, meaning new content won’t bring big jumps in player power. Instead, Blizzard is placing new items throughout the world that could prove useful in future raids.
“Making sure you feel smart for having pocketed something that comes in handy later,” Nuthals said of the approach.
Blizzard plans to add new dungeons and zones over time, and Nuthals said “not all of them will be max level.” He said the team hopes to build out stories from small details players have noticed, such as a one-off quest name or a note found in the game.
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