World of Warcraft: Forever Is Solving the Problem With Keeping a Classic Frozen in Time

Though BlizzCon 2026 was a pretty surprising event, the reveal I'm most excited about personally—World of Warcraft: Forever—was decidedly predictable. The concept of an official "Vanilla Plus" project was an open secret, and even by definition, a version of the 2004 game purpose-built never to leave the first year of Azeroth, sounds pretty similar to the launch expectations of WoW Classic. Yet as WoW Classic continues to take on new (albeit familiar) shapes, World of Warcraft: Forever still looks like something more: firm on the most concrete 2004 WoW principles while also taking several steps forward.