WoW Forever release date, beta and launch schedule

World of Warcraft: Forever launches worldwide on November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST. A beta ran from September 17, 2026, until its announced end on October 23, 2026, and the first two raids, Hyjal Summit and Barrow Deeps, are scheduled to unlock on December 9, 2026, five weeks after launch. This page collects every date Blizzard has confirmed so far and what you actually need to buy to take part.

Release date: November 4, 2026

Blizzard confirmed the global launch time as November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST during the BlizzCon 2026 panel recap. That is the moment servers open for everyone with an active WoW subscription or game time, not just for players who bought one of the pre-order packs. Blizzard has not published separate local launch clocks for other regions beyond the PST reference time, so treat 3:00 p.m. PST as the anchor until an official regional breakdown appears.

Converted with the time zone database (daylight saving time in the US ends on November 1, 2026, so PST applies on launch day), 3:00 p.m. PST is:

In Central Europe the servers therefore open at midnight between Wednesday and Thursday, on November 5 local time.

At launch you get the four new zones (Mount Hyjal, Shen'dralas, Riverglades and Zephras Isle), the nine new dungeons, the six new race and class combinations, the reworked talent trees for all nine classes, and the new Darkspear Islands battleground that Blizzard's panel recap describes as 15-versus-15 PvP content. The two new raids do not open on day one; see the section on December 9 below.

Launch day itself does not require anything beyond an active subscription or game time. The pre-order packs covered further down this page only change two things: whether you can play the Skyborne race, and whether you could test the beta before November 4. Neither pack changes what you get on launch day for the base game.

Beta since September 17

The WoW Forever beta began on September 17, 2026, the day after the BlizzCon reveal. It was originally set to end on October 21, 2026; on October 20, Blizzard community manager Kaivax announced that the beta now closes for good at 10:00 a.m. PDT (19:00 CEST) on Friday, October 23, 2026. For the stress test on October 21 the beta was scheduled to go offline for several hours and then reopen; according to the same post, all stress test characters, including their names, are deleted afterwards. Unlike the full release, beta access is not included with a normal subscription. Only players who purchased the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection could log in during this window; the cheaper Skyborne Heroic Pack does not include beta access.

This guide is written against beta build 1.60.1.69893, imported from wago.tools on 2026-09-18. Numbers and names pulled directly from that build are marked as such throughout this site; anything Blizzard has only described in the panel recap but that is not yet in the build's data is flagged as not yet in the beta data.

Between the end of the beta on October 23, 2026, and the November 4, 2026 launch there are about twelve days without any WoW Forever servers to play on: Blizzard says it will close the beta "forever". If you are relying on the beta to prepare a launch-day character, do not assume beta characters or progress carry over to launch — a transfer or carry-over policy for beta characters has not been announced.

Raids unlock December 9

Blizzard's panel recap states that new raids unlock on December 9, 2026. Two raids are planned for that date: Hyjal Summit (20-player) and Barrow Deeps (10-player, aimed at max-level characters). As of beta build 1.60.1.69893, the beta client already contains early loot assets tied to Hyjal Summit, including an item named Hyjal Summit Trash Weapon, which suggests boss and loot work is in progress even though Blizzard has not published a boss list or loot tables yet. Whether any additional raids unlock alongside these two on December 9 has not been announced.

What is included in the subscription

A standard WoW subscription or an equivalent amount of game time is enough to play World of Warcraft: Forever starting November 4, 2026. That includes:

The only piece of new content locked behind a purchase is the Skyborne race itself. Everything else Blizzard announced for Forever — the new zones, dungeons, raids, and race/class combinations — ships as part of the base subscription.

Beta access and pre-order packs

Three optional packs are available ahead of launch. Two of them included beta access while the beta ran.

Every pack includes the Skyborne race, the Zephras Isle starting experience, and an early name reservation. The Heroic Pack's notable cosmetic extras are the Cerulean Prideclaw mount and the Shen'dorei Windwell toy; the Epic Pack and Forever Collection add further mounts, pets, and tabards on top of those, though Blizzard has not published a full itemized list of the additional cosmetics beyond what Warcraft Tavern's editions coverage confirms. The Forever Collection's one differentiator over the Epic Pack is Warcraft III: Reforged and its Forsaken Kingdom content — it does not add anything extra for World of Warcraft: Forever itself.

If you only want the Skyborne race for November 4, the $29.99 Heroic Pack is the cheapest way in. With the beta closed since October 23, the beta access of the Epic Pack no longer gets you anything extra; what still differs between the packs is game time, Invite-a-Friend codes and cosmetics. The Forever Collection adds Warcraft III: Reforged and its Forsaken Kingdom content on top of the Epic Pack.

None of the three packs are required to play World of Warcraft: Forever itself — they exist to unlock the Skyborne race early (or at all before a future free unlock, if Blizzard ever adds one) and, for two of them, gave access to the beta until it closed on October 23. Blizzard has not said whether the Skyborne race will ever become available without a pack purchase, so treat that as not yet announced.