It’s been just over a week since the record-breaking launch of World of Warcraft: Forever. In that time a handful of players have raced to level 60, but the overwhelming majority are still weeks away from reaching max level, as they quest through Azeroth and see all the new sights and sounds Blizzard has cooked up.
So far, it’s been (mostly) an absolute joy. I’ve spent every spare moment I can find in developer Blizzard’s millennial retirement home, and after one week, it’s safe to say I’m more than a little consumed by it. I was already a lover of original WoW, having grown up playing it, and have since spent thousands of hours playing WoW Classic after it launched in 2019. Having a new version of this MMORPG, one that’s still unexplored and filled with new sights and sounds, is in many ways a dream come true.
That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows in Stormwind (or, if you prefer, Orgrimmar). Forever certainly has a lot going for it, and its launch was quite possibly the smoothest in Blizzard’s entire history. That being said, while Forever is nearly everything I could want from a “Classic Plus” experience, I do have a few gripes I hope Blizzard takes a closer look at in the weeks and months to come. Here’s what’s working, what I’m most impressed by, and what I’m still on the fence about as we enter the second week of Forever.
Good – The World Is Alive
MMO launches are special occasions. It’s when the game is likely to be the most populated it will ever be, and at any given moment you can see dozens of players running down the road, flooding questing areas, or hawking their wares in a capital city.
Forever’s launch was no exception, and it was, in a word, magical. Players were everywhere, and it made Azeroth feel alive again in a way that hasn’t been seen since WoW Classic Season of Discovery. Massive crowds have been an issue in past WoW Classic launches, as everyone competes to tag enemies they need for quests or loot specific items, but I found it to be a relatively pain-free experience. This is mostly due to WoW: Forever’s heavy use of layering, which divides players into different copies of the world. Layers were populated but not overcrowded, and it seems like after some initial tweaking, Blizzard has landed on what feels like the ideal number of players for various zones and cities.
It certainly helps that Blizzard’s new lighting, fog, and weather tech does wonders to make Azeroth feel like a real place. Within the first hour of playing my dwarf Paladin, an intense snowstorm hit Dun Morogh. I knew about WoW: Forever’s new weather effects, but I was floored at how immersive they can actually be. I could barely see 20 feet in front of me, relying on my map to tell me where to go. Already, within my first few hours of playing, I was being shown a version of Azeroth I’d never seen before. Later, while playing a Horde character in Orgrimmar, dark clouds formed overhead and heavy rain began to fall as I was turning in quests. The pitter-patter of heavy raindrops on the city’s rocky pathways presented Orgrimmar in a whole new light. It doesn’t sound like much, but the game’s updated visuals, particularly the weather effects, go a long way in making the world feel like a real place and not just a digital theme park.
Good – New Content Feels Seamless
Much of what’s exciting about Forever is its addition of all-new quests and dungeons to explore. From the get-go, Blizzard doesn’t waste any time showing players what’s changed, sprinkling in new quests and offering up a new low-level dungeon for both the Horde and Alliance.
New quests that let players select a gathering profession from the early starting zones are a godsend, letting you get a head start before venturing into the wider world. It’s worth mentioning how little Forever’s new quests stand out. To be clear, that’s a good thing. They don’t feel out of place, with similar “kill this many things” or “find this many items” objectives to vanilla WoW while still adding flavor to whatever zone or city they are found in. Sometimes their vague directions are reminiscent of classic WoW to the point of frustration, though you can always turn on the game’s built-in quest tracking should you get too annoyed.
