For a long time, fans have speculated about the rumored Classic+ and what it meant. The developers tried as best they could to explain what Classic+ is and what it is not. You can read the BlizzCon 2026 and PAX AUS 2026 transcripts:

Thanks to Blizzard Entertainment and its TriplePoint PR team, I was invited to the World of Warcraft: Forever (Beta). I played through the Alliance Level 1-30 experience as a Skyborne Elf Druid. I went on a mission to record every possible quest and uploaded them. I reported any bugs or issues to guarantee this game is as polished as possible at launch. I recorded the starting locations (10 zones) :

  • Zephras Isle (Skyborne starting zone)
  • Elwynn Forest > Redridge Mountains > Duskwood
  • Dun Morogh > Loch Modan > Wetlands
  • Teldrassil > Darkshore > Ashenvale

You can view the quest video list by zone here. Don’t worry. All links open in a new tab. You may continue reading.

World of Warcraft: Forever (Beta) Review

What is World of Warcraft: Forever, candidly known as Classic+? I have played World of Warcraft since the Vanilla beta (2004). So I can tell you that this game is very close to that first two-year gameplay experience. The very same quests. The very same annoying game mechanics and nuisances (cough: same flight paths, same spell ranks management, same quest bottlenecks… I hate you, Tyrion and Absent Minded Prospector). Sorry. Only a seasoned masochist-slash-player knows what I mean. The same quest flow (Duskwood: Go west to Raven Hill. Go east to Darkshire. Rinse and repeat for about 74 quests).

However, I’m unsure if some of the foreign non-Vanilla elements I experienced in Forever (Beta) will make it into the launched game. They were either intentional or a mistake, as the Beta we played was based on the Season of Discovery build. I found a few Season of Discovery quests that were enabled in this Beta. One of them in Westfall, at the Alexston Farmstead, starts with the quest: ” … and that note you found.” That questline rewards you with the Cozy Sleeping Bag, which grants you a 5% Experience Bonus buff for 2 hours.

It is the same old leveling experience, with a few new things. Not only the Season of Discovery stuff, but literally new quests. For example, in Duskwood, scattered throughout the zone are the four lost spirits of the Valor Family—former Watchers bound to this land.

The level 1-30 experience features several new dungeons that didn’t exist in Vanilla. You can watch some of my gameplay videos:

Each of these new dungeons has at least four quests. Each faction has its own tailored quests. The dungeons felt very straightforward; though sometimes complex, they felt natural and perfectly aligned with each zone’s specific quests and storyline. I think that’s a strong selling point for a Classic+. New dungeons. New quests. But at the core, it feels like Vanilla WoW.

The World as a character

While maintaining the integrity of original Vanilla core systems, the world design benefits from a modernized and stunning aesthetic. You can switch between SD or HD when you first launch the game, but also from the Settings UI. If you choose the HD version and crank every setting to eleven, you are going to love it.

In Beta, there were no options to turn on HDR or HDR settings, but under the hood, there were hidden options you could turn on from the /console — as discovered by Mordarr.

/console useHDRPeakBrightness 1

/console useHDRBrightness 1
and then adjust with /console HDRBrightness 1-1000

The weather effects, along with cranking up secondary lightning and other Graphics options, enhance the mood of each zone. For example, Western Plaguelands and Eastern Plaguelands have this dense fog that scatters the sunlight and moonlight. When there’s a storm, you can see the fog pushed away. Watch my video to see the night come alive as moonlight pierces the fog to create an intense, ethereal glow. It looks like daylight. Beautiful.

Winterspring and Dun Morogh snow hard with gusty winds. Wetlands and Elwynn Forest sometimes have severe rain storms. Sometimes, you can hear thunder and wind sound FX before the storm. Capital cities such as Darnassus and Stormwind had them too.

At the beginning of beta, I explored Riverglades (video) and Shen’dralas (video) at level 15. The two new zones looked spectacular and maintained the visual integrity of other WoW Vanilla zones.

Riverglades resembles its neighboring Redridge Mountains, but you could say it is the Alliance version of The Barrens. Shen’dralas merges Desolace, Feralas, and Duskwood visuals.

Zephras Isle, the Skyborne starting zone, is a whole different beast. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what it resembles. I’d have to go with bits of different zones. Maybe Valley of the Four Winds is more appropriate, mixed with other zones’ visuals. An area within looks like it’s straight from Duskwood. Another area within looks like ancient Kaldorei temples found in Azshara or Ashenvale.

But nothing in World of Warcraft can be compared to its skybox. Imagine a large island floating in the sky, held by massive floating towers (seen in the sky of Uldum) with a chain-support system keeping the island afloat. That’s Zephras Isle in a nutshell. An island floating in Skywall, the elemental plane of Al’Akir.

Then there is the glaring wormhole in the sky that the Skyborne use to fly their ship to Dalaran and back.

What lies beyond the level 30 veil?

For those who didn’t play World of Warcraft: Forever (Beta) or didn’t know, Blizzard Entertainment limited the gameplay experience with a level 30 cap. We couldn’t experience quests or dungeons above a certain level. However, Blizzard didn’t completely block access to zones above level 30-35.

No mythic Infernal stood guard at the gates, ready to strike you down, nor was this long-range debuff cast on you to teleport you back to Stormwind or Orgrimmar if you entered Mount Hyjal.

Mount Hyjal was originally introduced as a raid in the Burning Crusade expansion. But not as an explorable outdoor zone. Later, in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, Mount Hyjal was open to explore as an outdoor zone.

In short, we knew where the sealed gate to Mount Hyjal was in Vanilla WoW, but it didn’t exist as an explorable outdoor zone. That has changed in World of Warcraft: Forever.

Mount Hyjal is an open zone with a very, very different aesthetic and story. The travel flow is the same, but discard from your mind what you remember from World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. This zone has been redesigned to look like Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos happened just 5 years ago.

I can’t talk any further than this for fear of spoiling too much. I entered Mount Hyjal at level 30 the day before Beta ended. Mount Hyjal is meant to be the World of Warcraft: Forever endgame zone at launch, with a brand-new Raid that hasn’t been revealed, but I did see the green portal.

World of Warcraft: Forever is no doubt going to be a successful game. Not only for those who want the Classic Vanilla WoW level 1-60 gameplay experience, but also because of the enigma that the “Classic+” moniker implies. More quests. More zones. More content beyond what we experienced in the 2004-2005 era.

At PAX AUS 2026, Clay Stone shared the Developer Pillars for their idea of a Classic+ and what it is NOT:

“So then we talked about content, and our belief was that in addition to the existing vanilla WoW content, we would introduce new and expanded zones, new dungeons and raids, a new race, new Class updates, new reputations, new Professions content, new Items & Rewards, new Legendaries, and more! All with a persistent Level 60 cap… at Launch.”

If we are to believe Tim Jones (BlizzCon 2026: World of Warcraft Deep Dive Panel Transcript), the next Classic+ expansion won’t take us to Outland. No Burning Crusade. No Warlords of Draenor. No Argus in Legion. It’s all set in local Azeroth.

Tim Jones: So what exactly is WoW: Forever? For us, it begins with a simple belief: there are still adventures worth telling in the original world of Azeroth. We’re not looking beyond Azeroth for the next chapter. We’re not moving forward to Outland and beyond. Instead, we’re looking deeper into the world players already fell in love with.

The Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, the places we’ve traveled through for decades. We’re revisiting mysteries that were never fully explored, stories that were never fully told, regions that existed on the map but never had the chance to become adventures of their own. We believe Azeroth still has secrets worth uncovering.

The comment at PAX AUS 2026 that most drove home what Classic+ is was this:

We don’t want to stomp on or substantially contradict post-vanilla lore. And I think what this grew into is, as we again talked about at BlizzCon, we are starting from a place of canon, but we are going to be existing in a time bubble, essentially in Year One of World of Warcraft: Forever, or as long as players want to go on in this journey with us — which will allow us to be able to tell new stories that feel authentic to that space but at the same time, not force the modern game to have an immediate reaction to things

I don’t recall if it was at BlizzCon, PAX AUS, or somewhere online, but I remember hearing that Classic+ is a different timeline than Retail WoW’s. What happened in Retail WoW’s Year One and what happens in Classic+ (Forever)’s Year One are generally the same, but there were changes to the timeline — which makes Classic+ an alternate reality or timeline.

For example, in Retail WoW’s Year One, Dalaran stayed veiled behind the pink dome until Wrath of the Lich King (2008).

In Classic+ (Forever), Dalaran dropped its pink dome, and the Kirin Tor is still rebuilding the city, with unfinished towers still under construction. We still don’t know why they dropped the pink dome. No quests were available in Beta other than one quest that sends you to the Scarlet Monastery dungeon.

Riverglades, obviously, didn’t happen in Vanilla WoW, and it introduces a lot of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans lore bits to explore with the introduction of the Brotherhood of the Horse.

Mount Hyjal was strictly off-limits in Vanilla WoW, but a new Classic+ questline drops implications that will send a chill down players’ spines. Classic+ will build on the unfinished questlines, hinted zones, and raids that were never released, but make no mistake. Classic+ is an alternate timeline where things that happened in Retail WoW might happen in Classic+ too, but things that happened to lead to Retail WoW might not happen at all in Classic+.

In a nutshell, something has altered the past. Somehow. It is implicit in all of their statements. It opens up potential plots in a future World of Warcraft: Forever expansion if the Infinite Dragonflight ever shows up to discover what that change in the timeline was.

To make my case that Classic+ is an alternate timeline/reality in a multiverse of madness, I need to divulge a World of Warcraft: Forever Mount Hyjal spoiler. So I’m wrapping up my review and let you choose whether you want to read it or not. Thanks for reading. Follow @blizzplanetcom for updates on Twitter/X. If you wish to chip in for a meal or smoothie go to my PayPal.

SPOILERS

Second warning: Here be dragons. Spoilers of what I saw in Mount Hyjal.

At this point, I assume you have already watched my recent Mount Hyjal Exploration video. There I explored Mount Hyjal, but I decided to edit out some NPC dialogue text that blatantly reveals what happened at the Summit of Eternity in Mount Hyjal or better known as the location where Nordrassil the World Tree is at.

Not only did I read that dialogue text, I was shocked to read what the enemy NPC (that dialogue text referred to) said when a Horde player entered the building and aggroed him. The two things lay the groundwork for what is going on at the Summit, and let me tell you... this never happened in Retail WoW's storylines or lore. That places Classic+ in an alternate timeline where things happened slightly different than what happened in Retail WoW.

Third warning. This is the last chance to leave before the Spoiler.



SPOILERS

When I reached the Summit of Eternity, I found a female Night Elf warrior NPC that revealed the following:

Rhylin Stonethorn: Greetings, traveler. If you are looking to procure supplies from the Guardians of Hyjal, either myself or Aisarra should be able to assist. She can provide tradeskill plans to those who have proven themselves worthy, while I offer other goods that do not require a crafter's expertise.

(What are you doing out here, and what's going on?)

Rhylin Stonethorn: I am working with the druids who are still trying to protect Mount Hyjal. To my shame, I was until recently following one whom I thought was doing so.

My name is Rhylin, and I served as a warrior and guardian for the druid who now calls himself the Wild King. He claimed that by channeling the power of the Wild Gods, he could restore our lost immortality... a hope that I shared with many others. Druids flocked to him for the promise of renewed life.

But his methods became untenable. He would confront the gods and try to destroy them to claim their power. I eventually came to realize that he must be stopped.

Now I work with the few left here who are fighting to defend Nordrassil and the Well of Eternity.


That Wild King is likely inside the Mount Hyjal raid. But his disciple, Ve'han Talongrasp, is found at the Guardians of Mount Hyjal building that you know of below Nordrassil's roots (next to the Well of Eternity). In Retail WoW, that's where the portals to Stormwind and Orgrimmar are.

Like I said, a Horde player walked into the building when I was there in ghost form, and Ve'han said something shocking:

Ve'han Talongrasp: "By the will of the Wild King, the Wild gods will fuel our immortality!"

Next to Ve'han, he is siphoning a Wild god named Jereman (looks like an Arakkoan dread raven).

This is all everyone knows so far from the World of Warcraft: Forever (Beta), but that's enough to know what's going on. Bluntly, this is yet another Night Elf civil war. It feels like the developers want to bring some of the topics from other Retail expansions without necessarily having to branch out into Outland or experience the Cataclysm. The civil war I mention happened in Cataclysm when Fandral Staghelm and his druids of the flame betrayed their people allying with Ragnaros and a re-incarnation of that cult returned in the DRAGONFLIGHT expansion attempting to destroy Amirdrassil. In more recent history, five years before World of Warcraft: Forever, Malfurion decided to implode the World Tree to kill Archimonde and to deny the Burning Legion their prize (as seen in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Night Elf campaign: Eternity's End). That World Tree had been blessed by the Dragon Aspects, especially Nozdormu, granting immortality to the Night Elves for ten thousand years.

Archdruid Fandral Staghelm planted the seed that grew into becoming Teldrassil. The Dragon Aspects didn't bless this new tree. With their immortality gone, against their will, another druid took it upon himself to find a new source to restore their immortality.

Yes, it seems this Wild King druid took from Zul'jin and Malacrass' playbook: "Let's kill the Loas to gain untold power."

Whatever is happening in the Summit will be resolved in the Mount Hyjal Raid.

Where things get interesting: That's not the only thing going on in Mount Hyjal. Elderwild is at the westernmost edge of Mount Hyjal. This is an Ancients of the Grove camp where the remnants of the Alliance and Horde forces mount watch together -- separated by a thin wall.

Next to the Elderwild is the Mourning's Rest. The Burning Legion decimated that Alliance stronghold on their way to the Summit. Undead and Gargoyles protect this area. If you put the Burning Crusade's Caverns of Time: "Battle for Mount Hyjal" map and the Classic+ Mount Hyjal maps together side by side, the Alliance base in the Caverns of Time raid is now Mourning's Rest in Classic+. You might overlook something with what I just said, so let me point it out. Mourning's Rest is the Alliance camp we fought in Caverns of Time to stop the Legion's advance. But that Legion's advance was coming from the Dreadlord buildings down the road and to the west. Yup. Elderwild is where the Dreadlord's building was. Or better said: was supposed to be. That tells me something happened in the timeline to alter that fate for Elderwild. The Burning Legion simply rolled through the Alliance Encampment instead, ignoring Elderwild's defenses.

Battle for Mount Hyjal map Mount Hyjal map from World of Warcraft: Forever Beta

Dae'gun is a copy/paste of the Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal Horde Encampment buildings -- this is where players fought Azgalor in the Caverns of Time: Battle for Mount Hyjal raid but some towers are broken, and some buildings toppled. This area is crawling with Felguards, Felhunter beasts, and Doomguards.

I didn't get to explore the lower portions of Mount Hyjal as there were just too many bears, oozes, and chimaeras for me to explore without dying at level 30.

Gilneas

Those who played in Vanilla WoW (2004-2005) know this. Gilneas had a massive gate. You couldn't walk inside. You couldn't swim around to get inside. You would find a massive tall mountain all around Gilneas, even on the sea side. No way inside.

Something that caught everyone's eyes in World of Warcraft: Forever was the view from Menethil Harbor (Wetlands) and the view taking the boat from Menethil Harbor to Southshore. You could clearly see the main tower of Dalaran in the distance, but also two other towers some distance to the west. Those curious enough would swim toward those towers to see what they were.

And then... snap! As you swam in the direction of Gilneas, two sharks would hold you in place and kill you. I'm not kidding. It didn't matter if you walked in ghost form and resurrected and died over and over again until you reached the coast of Gilneas. As soon as you set foot on the beach, a Worgen would come out of the blue and kill you again.

But... what if you didn't resurrect near your corpse? Hmm. For whatever reason, the developers didn't create a mechanism to stop you from exploring Gilneas in ghost form. There was no ethereal Infernal to zap your ghost or a Val'kyr to fly you out of Gilneas. You could just explore Gilneas in World of Warcraft: Forever as a ghost. You can watch the video here.

The developers copied the Gilneas zone straight from the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion and pasted it into the World of Warcraft: Forever game. Except, it is evident there are a few alterations that show some work in progress going on to make this version of Gilneas "Year One"-ready.

For example, you can view in my recent article several screenshots of changes made to Gilneas in "Forever." Like this dock area in Shadowglen Village. I put together a side-by-side comparison between the Midnight expansion's version of Gilneas and World of Warcraft: Forever.

Or the Alliance flag in the Cathedral plaza with tents and first aid boxes -- which means some kind of war going on to protect Gilneas from falling. This is indication there is work in progress in the zone, and that Blizzard plans to open Gilneas in Year One. This did never happen in the Retail WoW timeline's Year One.

The only way Gilneas was accessible in Retail WoW was in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm when the Forsaken invaded Gilneas with Garrosh's blessing. The earthquakes had crumbled the Gilnean wall. If you played as a Worgen level 1-15, some time during that leveling experience you are doing some quests in Duskhaven, the southwestern area of Gilneas. Then you go to a basement to turn in a quest, when suddenly you feel an earthquake and hear a lot of noise outside.

When you emerge from the basement, you see that all of Duskhaven has sunk underwater. In World of Warcraft: Forever, Duskhaven is fine.

It is more than evident by now that Classic+ is not only giving you the same level 1-60 experience as found in Vanilla WoW, and not only new dungeon, new zones, and new quests. Classic+ is also showing many subtle signs that this is not the Retail WoW timeline. Things have happened differently in a few instances, and near future events never happened in Retail WoW.

Quel'Thalas

Gilneas and the current Mount Hyjal are testament to that fact. I'm astonished that the developers could copy/paste an entire zone into the Vanilla WoW (Classic+) ... because by that standard, they could forgo the stupid Burning Crusade portal to Quel'Thalas and instead... copy/paste World of Warcraft: Midnight's Quel'Thalas and paste it into World of Warcraft: Forever, then make broad changes to make the aesthetics "Year One" ready.

But don't hold your breath just yet. I explored around where Quel'Thalas should be in the map, by swimming around the coastline. Quel'Thalas isn't there at all. It doesn't exist physically in the World of Warcraft: Forever game as seen in my video here.

For now, it is exactly how it was in Vanilla WoW. No physical Quel'Thalas in-game. But the fact that Gilneas was copy/pasted then some "Year One" ready work has been done to it gives you hope that Midnight-Quel'Thalas might one day be pasted and reworked for a World of Warcraft: Forever patch or expansion.

Don't take my word for it... this is the image shown by Clay Stone at PAX AUS 2026 a few weeks after BlizzCon. Circled are: Gilneas and Quel'Thalas, among other unexplored locations that players have always wondered about and that the developers want you to explore in Classic+.