WoW Forever launch day: install the game, log in and make the most of your first hour

What time can you play WoW Forever on November 4?

WoW Forever opens on Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at 23:00 UTC, Blizzard's launch article of October 29 says: 3 p.m. PST in the Americas, 8 p.m. in Brazil, 11 p.m. in the UK, then midnight on November 5 in central Europe, 7 a.m. in Taiwan, 8 a.m. in Korea and 10 a.m. in eastern Australia. Blizzard Support lists the game as unavailable for maintenance from 18:00 UTC.

Before that, Blizzard Support's maintenance schedule lists WoW Forever as "Game unavailable" on November 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PST, and from 19:00 to midnight CET in its European table: 18:00 to 23:00 UTC. Name reservation ended on November 3. The time in more cities is in our release time guide.

How do you install WoW Forever?

Install WoW Forever from the Battle.net desktop app for Windows or Mac: choose WoW: Forever in the Game Version menu, pick the account in the second menu if you have several World of Warcraft accounts, then click Install and, once it is done, Play. You need an active World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time; only the Skyborne race also needs the Heroic Pack or higher.

1. Download the Battle.net desktop app for Windows or Mac and log in to your account.
2. Open the app and select WoW: Forever from the menu.
3. Under the Game Version menu, select WoW: Forever; with more than one World of Warcraft account, a second dropdown asks which one to play on.
4. Click Install: "The progress bar will show you when the game is available to play".
5. Once the installation is complete, click Play.

Those are Blizzard's steps from Return to Azeroth, October 29, 2026. Blizzard also says to update your operating system and graphics drivers before installing and to review the system requirements, which our launch checklist details.

What do you choose the first time you log in to WoW Forever?

At your first WoW Forever login you choose, in order: an Experience Preset, Classic or Enhanced, shown only once; a ruleset, Normal, PvP, Roleplay or Roleplay-PvP; then your character's faction, race, class, HD or SD models and two-part name. Agree on the ruleset and faction with your friends first: Blizzard says grouping, guilds, dungeons and raids only work within the same ones.

• Preset: Blizzard advises Enhanced if you are unsure; our Classic or Enhanced guide compares the six settings.
• Ruleset: Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP at launch, Hardcore later; "If you are unsure where to begin, Normal offers a welcoming place to learn" (Blizzard, October 28, 2026). See our rulesets guide.
• Character: faction, race and class; the Skyborne start on Zephras Isle, levels 1 to 12, see our Zephras Isle guide.
• Name: a main name and a secondary name, unique together within your region; the secondary name can be hidden under Options > Nameplates > My Secondary Name, but it still shows in chat.

What should you do in your first hour of WoW Forever?

In your first hour of WoW Forever, take quests from characters with an exclamation point, open the quest log with L and the world map with M, drag your spells from the spellbook (P) to your action bars, and bind your Hearthstone at an inn. Blizzard's starter guide adds: pull one enemy at a time, carry food and drink, and learn flight paths as you travel.

Still choosing? Our guides on which class to play and Alliance or Horde lay out the facts. Bags fill up fast: see where to get your first bags.

• Keys (Blizzard, October 28, 2026): L quest log, M world map, P spellbook, C character, K professions; Escape opens the Game Menu and its Options.
• New spells and bags: since Blizzard's notes of November 2, 2026, a spell you learn no longer goes on your action bars by itself, so drag it from the spellbook after each visit to your trainer; bags no longer equip themselves either. Class training costs 206 to 207 gold in total from level 1 to 60.
• Busy starting zones: the same notes speed up respawns for launch, fastest in starting zones and slower as you level, and say "Some contention for spawns is expected"; Blizzard will bring low-level zones back to "more typical rates" once the launch surge settles.
• Professions: two primary professions and all three secondary ones, Cooking, Fishing and First Aid, learned from trainers in starting areas and cities. Our professions guide compares them.
• Death: walk back to your body from the graveyard; the Spirit Healer resurrects you at the graveyard but damages your gear and may give Resurrection Sickness: in the game files of November 2, 2026, 1 minute plus 1 minute per level, up to 10 minutes (so 10 minutes from level 9).
• Our routes: the leveling guide zone by zone, the LFG message generator for groups and the first Legacy points tool.

Returning player: how do you get back into an old WoW account?

If you cannot sign in to an old account, Blizzard points returning WoW Forever players to Blizzard Support's account recovery: start with "Can't Log In?" to locate the account, reset the password, unlock access or fix authenticator issues, even without access to the old email address. Once in, Blizzard says to check the account's region, license, contact details and security settings before playing.

• Hacked account: secure your computer and email, request a restoration, change your password and add a Battle.net Authenticator.
• Still stuck: if the self-service options fail, the Blizzard Support portal lets you contact a Game Master.
• Region: names are unique within a region, so check that the account plays in the region your friends chose; our rulesets guide explains regions.

What if WoW Forever has a queue or an outage?

As of October 31, 2026, Blizzard had published nothing about launch queues or server capacity for WoW Forever. For outages, Blizzard Support points to its @BlizzardCS account on X, @BlizzardCSEU_EN in Europe, and to its Weekly Maintenance Schedule. Error codes such as WOW51900319, a lost connection, have their own Blizzard Support articles, gathered in our server status guide.

Our server status guide lists the official channels, the error codes and what Blizzard says to try. It shows no live status: we only report what Blizzard posts, with its date.

What is not in WoW Forever on launch day?

Two things come after launch day in WoW Forever. The Hardcore ruleset is "coming later", with details and timing "shared later", Blizzard wrote on October 28-29, 2026. The first raids, Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair, open on December 9 for level 60. Invite-A-Friend codes from the packs, by contrast, only last launch week: friends play without a subscription from November 4 through November 11.

• Hardcore: what Blizzard has said so far is in our Hardcore guide.
• Raids: bosses, sizes and the Drakefire Amulet in our raids guide.
• Changes: every change since the beta, newest first, Blizzard's notes of November 2 included, in our patch notes page.