Blizzard says its forever-level-60 Azeroth beat every WoW launch ever for peak and returning players, and drew the most new players in 15 years. Actual numbers? Not a chance.
Blizzard says World of Warcraft: Forever is the biggest launch in WoW history by peak concurrent players.
It also set a record for returning players, and Holly Longdale says it drew the most new players in 15 years.
Blizzard hasn't shared an actual peak, the record it beat, or any subscriber numbers.
The launch was smooth, and Icy Veins says Twitch viewership peaked at about 1.12 million.
A hotfix at 8.05am NZDT on 9 November raised dungeon kill XP by 50% after player feedback.
World of Warcraft: Forever is officially the biggest launch the 22-year-old MMO has ever had. Blizzard says the forever-level-60 version of Azeroth set new records for peak concurrent players and for returning players, beating every expansion and every Classic launch before it.
The official World of Warcraft account posted the news at about 3.30pm NZDT on Saturday 7 November, two and a bit days after the game went live here around midday on 5 November. “Congratulations everyone, you made HISTORY!” it said. What it didn’t post was a single actual player number.
Polygon points out that Blizzard doesn’t publish subscriber numbers anymore, so we may never get a real figure. Icy Veins reckons the next shot at one is Microsoft’s earnings in January 2027, and even that is a hope rather than a promise.
After a beta full of queues and disconnects, the launch itself was smooth. PC Gamer got in after two queues of about five and eight minutes on EU realms, then played until 4am without a disconnect or lag spike.
It was also huge on Twitch. According to Streams Charts figures cited by Icy Veins, Forever peaked at about 1.12 million concurrent viewers, just shy of the 1,132,957 that WoW Classic pulled in August 2019. Eurogamer reports it went to the top of Twitch’s most-watched games, ahead of League of Legends and the new Zelda.
Kiwi and Aussie players are on the Oceanic rulesets, which run on Australian servers. Blizzard hasn’t shared any region-by-region numbers.
The first big hotfix landed on Friday and stopped Horde flag carriers zooming around PvP battlegrounds like Warsong Gulch, according to Eurogamer. Then on Sunday US time, Blizzard bumped dungeon kill XP by 50%.
Stone also told Bloomberg, as quoted by Polygon, that Blizzard wants to keep going “as long as players want to go with us”, with unfinished raids, zones and dungeons still on the table. If you want the full story of how a dead private server got us here, our 22-year history of WoW: Forever has it, and everything else lives on our WoW: Forever game page.
In 2013 Blizzard told everyone they didn’t really want old-school WoW. Thirteen years later, the old-school game just beat every launch the company has ever had, every expansion included. That’s not a comeback, that’s a public correction.
It’s also a bit rich to shout “biggest ever” and then refuse to say how big. Post the number, Blizzard, or we’ll assume it’s twelve blokes dancing naked outside Goldshire. Still, a smooth launch, a fast XP fix based on feedback, and a game people actually want to play is a better week than Blizzard’s had in years.
Windows Central is already asking whether this leaves retail WoW in trouble, and honestly, fair question.
Back in Azeroth, or still traumatised by the last time? Tell us in the GetRekt Discord.
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Quick check before we post that