World of Warcraft: Forever opens today, November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST, which is 23:00 UTC. The name reservation window that ran October 27 through November 3 is over, so there is no reservation step left today: the next gate is the login screen. Blizzard Watch reported a longer Forever maintenance window scheduled for this morning ahead of the launch, on top of the one-hour maintenance that took reservation offline on November 3.
The two systems posts Blizzard published on November 3 are worth reading before you queue. They add two systems that our beta coverage did not have in this form: Experience Presets at first login, and a full official gamepad layout.
Two presets, one ruleset
The first time you log in, Blizzard now asks you to Choose Your Experience Preset before choosing a Ruleset. The preset bundles the initial visual and interface settings; it does not decide which ruleset you play on.
- Classic starts with standard-definition character models, quest points of interest and objective areas off, one-bag view off, transmog off, camera turning on the keyboard, and the classic screen layout.
- Enhanced starts with high-definition character models, quest guidance on, one-bag view on, transmog on, strafing on the keyboard, and a centralized screen layout. Blizzard's advice is to start here if you are unsure, because every individual setting can be changed later under Game Menu > Options.
The preset disappears after that first login. Each new character still gets a separate choice between high-definition and standard-definition models and animations at creation, which changes appearance only and can be changed later in Options or at a barbershop. Advanced options also expose the Cooldown Manager and the built-in Damage Meter.
The ruleset list is now four, and Hardcore is not one of them yet
The October 29 launch article lists the four rulesets players can choose today: Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP. That confirms the working commitment in Aggrend's October 22 post: Roleplay-PvP ships at launch and is selectable from the start, rather than waiting on a later patch. It carries strict naming and behaviour rules and open-world PvP; see the RP-PvP piece.
Hardcore is explicitly not available today. The October 29 article says the Hardcore ruleset will become available "sometime after launch", and the November 3 systems article repeats that it is planned to follow a little after launch. Neither attaches a date. That matches our beta read: the fourth ruleset ships now, the fifth comes later.
Two grouping rules are worth repeating because they decide where your friends roll. Characters can group, join guilds, run dungeons and raid only within the same ruleset and faction, and PvP realms restrict players to a single faction. Agree on both before character creation.
Gamepad support is official, and still beta
Blizzard's November 3 gamepad article is the first full first-party description of controller play, and it goes further than the September hands-on that we mapped for the Steam Deck and desktop pads.
- Hardware: all XInput-compatible controllers work, with Xbox and PlayStation button icons. On controllers with supported lighting, the light turns red for a Horde character and blue for an Alliance character.
- Setup: Game Menu > Options > Gameplay > Gamepad switches input. Camera, HUD modifier, frame focus style, action bars, targeting and raid targeting are all adjustable.
- Targeting and movement: left stick moves, right stick controls the camera, left bumper selects a friendly target and right bumper selects a hostile one.
- Action bars: three action bar sets, four bars per set, 28 slots per set, 84 customizable slots in total. Hold LB + RB and press left or right on the D-pad to change set; hold LT, RT or both to reach the other bars inside a set.
- Shortcuts: LB + RB plus B opens the backpack, Up opens the quest tracker, Down opens chat and Y manages buffs. Chat still needs a keyboard, and Blizzard calls the support a "functional beta" with interface updates ongoing.
That is a more complete picture than "controller support exists", but it is still pre-launch documentation. We will re-read the live gamepad settings after the servers open rather than treat the article as proof that every screen has a footer.
What we are watching after the gate
- Whether reserved two-part names appear correctly in each region, and whether the region-wide uniqueness rule holds under launch load.
- Whether Roleplay-PvP is selectable in every region from the first login, not just present in the article.
- The first live build number, and whether it matches the last beta or dev track we recorded.
- Launch stability, since a global same-moment release and a long maintenance window are exactly the conditions that produce queues.
- The December 9 raid gate: Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair, with the Drakefire Amulet still required for Onyxia.
Our launch checklist covers the account, client and addon decisions that had to be made before today. The Forever hub collects the rest of the coverage, including the raid overview.
After launch: November 8 update
Forever is live. The first player-facing client we recorded was 1.60.1.70790 on launch day, and the wowf track reached 1.60.1.70862 on November 7. Blizzard's November 6 hotfix pass and the November 5 Known Issues thread are collected in the first weekend brief, and the November 8 dungeon kill experience increase has its own brief. A five-player group reached level 60 in 52 hours on the EU Normal ruleset, and a first solo 60 was reported on November 8. Hardcore still has no date.
SOURCES: Blizzard, "World of Warcraft: Forever Goes Live Globally November 4!" (published October 29 2026), read November 4 2026 via TheWoWDB's dated republication; Blizzard, "WoW: Forever, What's New and What Feels Familiar" and "Explore WoW: Forever with a Gamepad" (published November 3 2026), read November 4 2026 via TheWoWDB's dated republications; Blizzard Watch, "It's a speedy Warcraft maintenance day, now with added WoW: Forever maintenance!" (November 3 2026) for the pre-launch maintenance window; our own launch-time resolution and beta coverage for the 23:00 UTC conversion. Related: the RP-PvP ruleset, the launch checklist, the raid overview, and the Forever hub.