WoW: Forever Beta Brings Blizzard's Biggest Player Surge in 17 Years

The beta for World of Warcraft: Forever, announced at BlizzCon 2026, drew Blizzard's largest player influx in 17 years but suffered disconnects and lag. The issues stemmed from Battle.net's BGS protection system rather than CPU overload. The game launches on November 7, 2026.

• Developer Josh Greenfield called the beta launch the biggest he's seen in 17 years at Blizzard
• Disconnects were caused by the BGS system protecting Battle.net, not CPU or memory overload
• Looting and quest lag traced to slow responses from the beta's PTR database
• WoW: Forever releases on November 7, 2026, with the base pack starting at $29.99