WoW Forever: built on purpose not to feel like the modern game

Who is WoW Forever actually for? Associate Production Director Clay Stone answered that on the fifth episode of the official WoW Forever podcast, the end-of-beta special that also brought new numbers on raid bosses. The question came up because one of the guests mostly plays the modern version of the game.

Broadly, Stone said, the game is for anybody who likes World of Warcraft, used to like it or is curious about it. He added that a game designed for everybody is a game designed for nobody, and that much of the team comes from WoW Classic, so it knows how to build Classic-like experiences. Current Classic players are not the only target, though: Blizzard also has in mind players who have not touched WoW in a very long time, and Classic players who walked away but want something new in that space.

The clearest line was about the modern game. Stone said it was very important to design an experience that deliberately did not feel like the modern game. Some modern parts did come across, such as the collections menu and transmog, but in both cases the team made big decisions about how they work so that they do not behave exactly as they do in Midnight. The aim, in his words, is a complementary experience: someone who has finished what they want to do in the current expansion can come over for a classic-style levelling journey.

Stone also stressed that this direction is not set in stone. Blizzard thinks it knows its audience from who the game was built for and from the beta, but will only know for sure after launch, and the players who stay will inform some later decisions. Another developer on the episode added that the team does not see it as retail against Classic, but as a question of whether something fits the 4 core pillars presented at BlizzCon.