World of Warcraft: Forever launches globally on 4 November 2026 at 3pm PST, which is 10am AEDT on Thursday 5 November. It comes with any WoW subscription or Game Time, and Early Name Reservation for upgrade owners opens on 27 October.
That leaves about a week to sort an edition, pick a ruleset and lock in names before everyone else does. Names are first-come, first-served and rulesets can't be swapped later, so the choices you make this week stick. Checked against Blizzard's pre-purchase, ruleset and name reservation posts.
US clocks go back on 1 November, so launch day runs on PST (UTC-8), not PDT. If you're converting yourself, 3pm PST is 6pm EST, 11pm GMT and midnight CET going into 5 November. Name reservation, a week earlier, still sits on PDT.
Korea and Taiwan open name reservation at 07:00 local time on 28 October. The 9 December date for the first raids (Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair) is from Blizzard's roadmap image as reported by Warcraft Tavern, not from a Blizzard post.
Early Name Reservation is a perk of the paid upgrades, not the base game. Here is what Blizzard's name reservation post confirms:
To get set up, open the Battle.net app, pick World of Warcraft, switch the Game Version menu above Play to World of Warcraft: Forever, install, then choose your ruleset on first launch.
None, if you just want to play. Forever is included with a standard subscription or Game Time. The three upgrades add the Skyborne race, cosmetics and name reservation. Blizzard lists them as:
The beta perk on the Epic Pack and Collection is now spent, since testing has closed. The live difference is Game Time and extra codes. If you want to play Skyborne from day one, Heroic is the minimum.
Forever has no realm list. You choose a ruleset, which Blizzard describes as a broad player ecosystem rather than a single realm. The launch lineup:
Collections and Legacy Points are account-wide across rulesets. Battlegrounds can mix players from different rulesets, except Hardcore, which stays sealed off.
The cap is 60 and is set to stay there for the foreseeable future, with new zones and raids added inside the 1–60 range. There's no flying and no level scaling, so a zone's level band is fixed. Run your route in level order and you skip the dead time.
Can I play WoW Forever without a subscription?
Only through an Invite-A-Friend launch code, which covers 4 to 11 November. After that you need a subscription or Game Time, the same as modern WoW and Classic.
Do I need to buy a new game for WoW Forever?
No. It's a third version inside your existing World of Warcraft account, next to modern WoW and Classic, selected from the Game Version menu in Battle.net.
