A truly classic experience.
World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard’s modernised take on the Vanilla-era WoW experience from more than two decades ago, launched its beta last night. However, many players have been left stuck in what feels like a perpetual queue, with plenty unable to access the game even after hours of trying.
Problems have also been reported in other areas, with some players being kicked out of the game after only minutes of playing, others being disconnected from the queue multiple times, and some being routed to servers in other regions, according to comments on X.
Blizzard has responded, telling fans: “We're working through some final issues, and we expect the doors to open soon.”
While the WoW: Forever beta is expected to gradually stabilise, many players have been left disappointed by the rocky launch. The newly-announced project has been highly anticipated by passionate WoW fans, and it is being handled by Blizzard, which is certainly no rookie in the industry.
That said, this is only a beta, giving Blizzard time to patch issues and implement fixes before its full release. Fingers crossed, the final version will have a smoother launch. The beta will remain playable until 21 October, before the full version of WoW: Forever releases on 4 November.
What is World of Warcraft: Forever?
Blizzard made a surprise reveal at BlizzCon 2026 a week ago, announcing World of Warcraft: Forever with its release just two months away.
It is a modernised recreation of the original 2004 World of Warcraft, essentially retaining the fundamentals of the classic game while introducing current-generation graphics and quality-of-life improvements. It will also feature new zones, quests, dungeons, stories, and more.
WoW: Forever is set in the early days of Azeroth, after the events of Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before the events surrounding Molten Core. It will not follow the continuity of the modern Warcraft universe, instead taking place in an alternate timeline.
Blizzard intends WoW: Forever to be a standalone experience designed to let old-school WoW fans enjoy a modernised version of the Vanilla-era experience. After its announcement, many fans flocked to pre-order the game in anticipation of its release.
One Reddit post praised the idea behind WoW: Forever, stating:
“For me, and many others, this is EXACTLY what we’ve wanted. It was like a prophecy fulfilled yesterday, couldn’t believe my eyes.
I wanted refreshed graphics a bit more than others, and I even got that, plus content updates for years to come in the 1-60 classic wow environment. Literally nothing to complain about.”
The post has earned more than 7,000 upvotes.
