Choose Your Ruleset in World of Warcraft: Forever

Every journey through Azeroth begins with a choice about the kind of world you want to step into. In World of Warcraft: Forever, we’re changing how that journey begins by moving away from the traditional realm-selection screen and introducing rulesets instead. Rather than asking players to pick the “right” realm before creating a character, World of Warcraft: Forever lets you choose the kind of experience you want to have first. Each ruleset functions more like a broad player ecosystem than a single traditional realm, making it easier to find others who share your preferred playstyle while preserving the feeling of a living, active Azeroth. Choose the Ruleset That Fits Your Journey Players will be able to select from several rulesets that reflect familiar ways to play World of Warcraft: Normal: The baseline World of Warcraft experience, where players can focus on exploration, questing, cooperation, and player-versus-player combat when they choose to engage in it. PvP: For players who want every trip into contested territory to carry more danger, excitement, and open-world conflict. Roleplaying: For players who want to lean more deeply into the fantasy of Azeroth and seek out like-minded adventurers. Hardcore: For players seeking the ultimate challenge, where every decision matters and death carries lasting consequences. (Hardcore will be available sometime after launch.) Playing Together Within a Ruleset While World of Warcraft: Forever is designed to make it easier to connect with friends, each ruleset remains its own distinct space. Players can group, run dungeons, and raid with others who have chosen the same ruleset. Cross-ruleset grouping is not supported, so characters in different spaces will not be able to group together for those activities. Battlegrounds may include players from other rulesets, with the exception of Hardcore, which remains separate. Factions also remain separate. Horde and Alliance players still cannot group together, preserving the faction boundaries that remain core to the World of Warcraft: Forever experience and maintaining the “war” in Warcraft. Moving Between Rulesets Each ruleset is built to support a distinct community and playstyle, so movement between them is intentionally limited. Players cannot freely hop between rulesets; to play under a different one, they’ll need to create a new character in that ruleset. When Hardcore becomes available, Hardcore characters will remain in a fully enclosed ecosystem, but if one dies, that character can transfer to another ruleset—including PvP. Collections and Legacy Points are account-wide across rulesets, with Hardcore handled differently. Progress, collections, and rewards earned in Hardcore can become available elsewhere, but progress from other rulesets will not flow back into Hardcore. This keeps Hardcore distinct while still allowing players to carry accomplishments forward if they move out of it. A Larger World That Still Feels Familiar The realmless structure is meant to reduce the pressure of choosing the right launch realm without turning Azeroth into a place that feels anonymous. As players level, quest, gather, and explore within their chosen ruleset, the world around them should still feel active and lived in—filled with organic encounters, unexpected rivalries, moments of cooperation, and the kind of shared experiences that make each journey feel rooted in Azeroth. Players will also be able to choose a language preference and encounter others who share that preference. To set it, open the Game Menu by pressing (Escape), choose Options, then select Languages and Social under the System heading. From there, choose your preferred language under “Preferred Online Language.” This account-wide setting applies to all characters and has a 24-hour cooldown before it can be changed again. For the PvP ruleset, faction balance remains an important consideration, and World of Warcraft: Forever will include systems intended to help keep Horde and Alliance populations closer together similar to the approach introduced in Season of Discovery, where new character creation could be temporarily limited for a faction when additional balance support was needed. On the PvP ruleset, players can only create characters for one faction. Once you create an Alliance character on the PvP ruleset, you won’t be able to create a Horde character there, and vice versa. On Normal, Roleplaying, and Hardcore rulesets, you can create characters from both factions. Together, these rulesets are designed to give players a clearer way to shape their experience. Whether you’re seeking a familiar cooperative journey, the danger of contested territory, a roleplaying-focused home, or the lasting stakes of Hardcore, World of Warcraft: Forever gives you a place to begin—and other adventurers to find along the way. What path into your next adventure will you choose?