WoW Forever roadmap: 17 September beta, 4 November launch, 9 December raids, then Hardcore and 'a revamped iconic raid' — dated where Blizzard dated it, and a changelog of what this site updates

Seven items carry a date in Blizzard's material, one of them (the Collection's end) via Warcraft Tavern's read of the Battle.net Shop. Everything else Blizzard has said about the future is a list without a calendar.

'New raids unlock on December 9, followed by more raids, dungeons, PvP updates, world content, additional quests throughout the level 1–60 journey, Hardcore, a revamped iconic raid, and major updates that will keep expanding this evergreen version of Azeroth over time.' Elsewhere: Hardcore is 'available after launch'; the Legacy system will gain 'new challenges, new perks, additional ways to spend points, expanded spending caps, new columns within existing trees, and potentially entirely new trees'; race-class combinations have 'more planned for future updates'; class details are 'planned through future videos and articles'; the raids' 'legendary reward' is one Blizzard is 'looking forward to revealing in full'.

Blizzard's own framing of the cadence: 'This is not a mode, a season, or a new version of Classic. It is a promise to keep building this world with the community, guided by your feedback, and made to last.' No patch numbering, no season structure and no expansion is described. The level cap stays at 60.

It was the busiest published day before launch. The beta opened for owners of the $59.99 Epic Pack or the $79.99 Collection, running to 21 October. At 10:00 a.m. PDT Blizzard held the live Q&A answering forum-submitted questions, with a VOD promised afterwards. Given what the panels left open — class changes beyond the Paladin, Forever-specific requirements, region details, XP, the economy's scope — the Q&A was the first scheduled place answers could appear. This site's news feed reads Blizzard's news page every 30 minutes and flags Forever posts; the forum watch reads the official WoW: Forever forum every 15 minutes and marks threads with a Blizzard reply. Both are linked from this hub's navigation.

Forever versus Classic is the question for anyone who has played Era, Hardcore or Season of Discovery: same cap, same world, same pacing, but a new layer of systems, three new zones and a different server model. Forever versus retail is the question for a modern player: no flying, no scaling, no expansions, a subscription that already covers it. Both pages are built from Blizzard's own stated differences and say where a difference is unstated.

Anyone can read the primary sources in twenty minutes; the table says which one answers what, so the reader does not have to take this site's word for it. All five are linked in the sources list at the foot of this page.

Three things were scheduled: the beta and the Q&A on 17 September (both now past; the beta runs to 21 October), and launch on 4 November. What follows is pattern, not promise. Blizzard said class details were 'planned through future videos and articles', and delivered: class deep dives for all eight remaining classes appeared between 30 September and 7 October, alongside posts on PvP progression, the Darkspear Islands battleground and Skyborne visual updates. Beta patches and hotfix notes would normally appear on the official forum and news site as the beta runs; Forever's forum category exists for that. A launch-week article with the exact server-open procedure is Blizzard's habit for Classic launches. None of those has been announced for Forever, and this hub lists them only so that their absence is not mistaken for a change of plan.

The one thing this site will not do is publish a date Blizzard has not. The forum is already full of guesses; the changelog above records only what is sourced.

Every correction or addition to these pages is logged here with the date and the Blizzard source that caused it, so nothing changes silently. Entries are newest first.

To keep this hub short, the unanswered questions are held on the page they belong to. Class changes for all nine classes: the classes hub. Dungeon bosses and levels: the dungeons page. Whether the original raids exist: the raids page. Region list, economy scope, RP-PvP: the realmless page. A stand-alone Skyborne unlock: the Skyborne and price pages. Forever's GPU floor (AMD GCN 1, NVIDIA Maxwell, Intel Skylake or newer, per Blizzard's 17 September post): the system requirements page. Which original raids return: Onyxia's Lair is confirmed (raid overview, 20 October); the rest are on the raids page. Each is marked 'not published' on its page and will be answered there, with a date, when Blizzard posts.

Blizzard's word for Forever is 'evergreen version of Azeroth', and its description of the cadence is deliberately unlike an expansion cycle: content 'over time', no new cap, no new continent. The nearest precedent in Blizzard's own history is Classic's phased release in 2019–2020, where raids opened on a schedule after launch — which is the pattern the 9 December raid date follows. Beyond that, the roadmap is a list of categories, and this site does not convert categories into dates. When a date appears, it moves from the undated list to the dated table above.