Blizzard Scrambles to Meet World of Warcraft Forever’s Unexpected Popularity

It’s not often you hear about a game being too popular, but that is exactly the dilemma facing World of Warcraft Forever. Following its announcement during BlizzCon 2026, the latest iteration of Blizzard’s MMO launched an official beta that has become the hottest ticket around. Players have been so eager to get in that it has caused long wait times and other problems.

Now Blizzard is making another adjustment to try to accommodate the unprecedented popularity of the beta.

Over the weekend, World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Londale posted on X announcing that the team “had to increase the WoW: Forever Beta population cap again. The wild ride continues.” This basically means that to meet demand, Blizzard has raised the number of players who can access the game at the same time. As alluded to in her post, this has already occurred once since the beta was launched on Sept. 17.

The response to the beta is extreme even for World of Warcraft, one of the most long-lived and continuously relevant games around. The day after the beta’s release, developer Josh Greenfield posted that Forever had “the craziest numbers I’ve seen in 17 years working at Blizzard.” As Forever hasn’t even been fully released to the general public yet, that’s a good sign for its future.

What is World of Warcraft Forever?

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

In simple terms, World of Warcraft Forever is the “Classic plus” version of the MMO. It is the third iteration of the game and will run alongside retail (which receives the latest expansions) and Classic (a vanilla experience that progresses through the game’s past expansions over time). Forever will be set during the first year of vanilla World of Warcraft but will come with some changes to the original experience, as opposed to Classic‘s more faithful recreation.

Forever will have a level 60 cap and introduce three entirely new zones not seen in World of Warcraft‘s initial launch. Existing zones will be overhauled and include over 1,000 new quests, nine new dungeons, two new raids, and a new race (Skyborne Elves). The game is in beta through Oct. 21 and will be released in its complete state on Nov. 4. The game will be included in the standard World of Warcraft subscription, but the Skyborne Elves race will be a separate purchase priced at $29.99.