World of Warcraft: Forever is designed to encourage players to create and level multiple characters, or "alts," as a core part of its progression system. This strategy aims to welcome new players, facilitate cooperative play, and ensure players can engage with all the content added in future updates. The game is set to launch on November 4.
Developers have highlighted a "Legacy System" that awards players achievement-style points for major accomplishments. These points can be invested in talent-tree-like options that offer significant quality-of-life improvements. Accumulating these points becomes more manageable with multiple characters, as lower-level characters can secure easier achievements more quickly.
"There will be reasons to play alts and to unlock Legacy points, to have new journeys," said vice president and senior game director Ion Hazzikostas. Principal designer Kris Zierhut elaborated that alt characters offer a lower time investment for players who wish to assist friends or new players. "Now I can say, 'You know what? I've got this level 20 guy I've been leveling. You can get there pretty quick. Let's group up and play together,'" Zierhut stated.
This approach also ensures that players experience the breadth of content being added to Forever. Since the level cap remains consistent, new zones and features are being developed across various level ranges. "We're releasing content around all of the different level bands," explained lead game designer Tim Jones. This allows players to engage with the game in sessions of varying lengths, finding meaningful progression whether they have a full evening or just 30 minutes.
Future updates will introduce new items for professions, additional leveling dungeons, and new zones. "When we think of future updates, we want to make sure we're creating content that everyone who plays the game has something to look forward to," said lead software engineer Michael Nuthals. "If I love leveling, I've got a new path or a new quest chain or a new dungeon I can do."
Lead software engineer Nora Mills added that this design philosophy ensures a unique experience for each character. "Your journey is never identical to what it was," Mills said. "We're basically trying to entice players to want to create new characters, to roll an alt."
To further support alt play, the development team is considering features like an account-wide bank, similar to systems in the modern World of Warcraft. This would eliminate the need to manually mail items between characters. "An account-wide bank is something I could see adding in the not-too-distant future," Hazzikostas noted.