World of Warcraft: Forever has recaptured the original MMO's magic, something I thought was impossible

I've had an on-and-off relationship with World of Warcraft ever since I first booted it up in my early teens. I love the size of the world, the joy of exploration, the kick from getting a purple drop from a dungeon at 1am. But more and more, I found myself stepping away from the endless treadmill that is the modern game. World of Warcraft: Classic, however, reunited my enthusiasm, and now Forever has properly dragged me back in.

When Wow Classic launched in 2019, I was entranced enough that I levelled up to 60, and after that, I continued: diving into rep grinding in The Burning Crusade Classic. Both were largely adventures in nostalgia, flipping through old photos. Later, I died over and over leveling in Hardcore Classic WoW. This injected a largely solved game with an intense level of danger that made even the blander segments of the leveling journey exciting. Scrub that I am, I never maxed a hardcore character, but every cave I died in became a milestone moment. Every other player I saw die was a spectacle, and a sombre community moment where you could mourn (or mock) a fallen comrade fighting against the odds.

Later still, I loved the bold swings Season of Discovery brought to the table. New spells, new quests, new raids built on the foundation of decades' old dungeons. This helped chip away at the sameness that inevitably haunted the Classic rerelease; some changes worked, some didn't. But either way it showed Classic World of Warcraft was a rich field worth toiling over.

All this time though there was a question: what if Blizzard took these learnings from prior excursions into the past and ran with it? What if they stayed here, took this energy, and reveled in it?

World of Warcraft: Forever is that idea realised. After announcing the WoW: Forever project at this year's BlizzCon, Blizzard launched its beta last week. It's been hugely popular, and like many others, and I've been playing ever since. At this moment, players can progress their characters up to level 20, and already there are clear signs the WoW Forever team at Blizzard knows what it's doing. These signs come in two forms: what's been changed, and what's stayed the same.

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What's been changed is obviously the most apparent, and arguably the most exciting. I've taken a stroll over to the Riverglades, and this new zone has been built with such care it's easy to imagine it has always been there, simply tucked out of reach all these years. Old roads in this zone lead through ruined towns with roots in the old Warcraft RTS games. Farholde Keep, a new town located on the coast, is fantastic work, featuring environmental design that feels so organic, I turned my UI off so I could properly admire it. and slowly walked through Farholde's front door, the music hitting just as this grand horseback knight statue filled up my monitor. It's magic that, the sort of environment design that emerges organically here, and is otherwise recreated in more linear games through cinematics or locked camera pans.

Forever's new class and race combos, meanwhile, have been done with elegance. Undead Paladins take up a major role in the announcement trailer and I did fear they'd be shoehorned into the game. It would be far easier just to slap in a new class without consideration of its impact on the world and narrative, all in the name of the new. A big glowing mace prying the door open. Instead, they've been integrated into the world gracefully. Their place in The Forsaken is constantly under scrutiny, part of the Horde but not quite, ever keen to prove themselves, and this parallels The Forsaken's own place in the wider politics of World of Warcraft, creating a dynamic that makes it works. The fact I can sit on my arse and write all nerdy about the narrative merits of a new World of Warcraft class is evidence enough of the care at play here.

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And the smaller stuff! World of Warcraft: Forever is full of little additions that may not mean too much looking at the game in its totality, but make all the difference as you play. There's the fact that druids, if they manage to get the entire Fang gearset from Wailing Caverns, can turn into a snake, something rarely explored in World of Warcraft at all. The possibility that mages can decipher a scroll - a Mage-specific skill - that allows them to turn a rare sword from Shadowfang Keep into a Coldflame Saber. A secluded passage from the Swamp of Sorrows that leads into Thousand Needles, offering a beautiful look into the Salt Flats and offering players an alternative path into new adventures. All these add little stops to the wider journey; it encourages you to stop and smell the Peacebloom. Through these, World of Warcraft: Forever has done what I thought impossible: it has recaptured the feeling that there are new treasures to be discovered, even if there isn't.

Because so much of World of Warcraft: Forever has been left alone, and that's a good thing. This is not a Cataclysm-style overhaul, rather a refinement and enhancement of what's already there. All of the quests you love are untouched; the dungeons you know are the same (though some new loot may surprise you); walking through Elwynn Forest or Darkshore in Forever is like coming home for Christmas: the house is the same but there are little presents scattered across the place.

The new lighting, fog, and water effects are a wonderful example of this. I remember flying into Thunderbluff right as the sun was rising over the mountains, the horizon almost lining up with the rope bridges linking the spires. When you see that, especially with the memory of how the game used to look still in your mind, it justifies the whole game. Plus, if you don't fancy this new look, you have the option to keep the visuals as they were all those years ago. A pleasant alternative that should satisfy both the dogmatic Classic fans and those eager to see the game in a new light.

I'll throw my hands up and say I didn't think the World of Warcraft: Forever team could pull this off as well as they have. I reckoned that a Classic Plus would be good - the work done in Season of Discovery showed they were willing to throw interesting ideas at the wall - but I thought it would have sharper corners. Prickly design decisions that didn't quite work, weird additions that lessened the overall experience. Instead, playing through the Forever beta has been a smooth flight without turbulence, the old and new blending together without bumps nor bruises.

Yes, there's much debate around the new Skyborne race and how "Classic" they feel. Visually they veer closer to modern WoW than other races, and seeing a Skyborne walking around in their fancy feathered bear form does at times clash with the older models. People who aren't vibing with them are valid in their feelings, Blizzard will have to handle any new additions with a watchmaker's daintily. Even with this in consideration, I'm shocked by how the magic of the original World of Warcraft has been recaptured.

Modern WoW may share a name with the old World of Warcraft, but it's fundamentally different in its design philosophy. Modern WoW is about pushing yourself ever forwards, gearing up constantly, rather than smelling the roses. Unless you're a mount collector, or a doomed All the Things addon enjoyer, it's all about vertical progression.

Yet, with World of Warcraft: Forever's beta, the team - many of whom presumably weren't involved in the original WoW - has rekindled early magic, and proven (at least to me) that they can make an MMO differently, going back to the old ways with deft hands. All they need to do is not muck it up with the full release: no pressure!