WoW Forever: Blizzard's owner calls it WoW's biggest beta

World of Warcraft has just run the largest beta in its history, according to the company that owns Blizzard. Its chief executive Satya Nadella said on 28 October, during the earnings call for the first quarter of the 2027 financial year, that World of Warcraft had its largest beta in franchise history.

Nadella gave no number of testers and did not name the game version in that line. The remark came a week after the WoW Forever beta closed on 21 October, and it has been read as referring to that test. Blizzard itself has not published how many players took part.

World of Warcraft was one of only a few games named in the short gaming section of the call. Nadella also pointed to a record quarter for Minecraft and to the launch of Modern Warfare 4.

Interest in Forever has been visible this week as well, with name reservation opening late in Europe. Forever launches for Europe at 23:00 London time on 4 November, and the European realms and rulesets are listed on our Forever page.