World of Warcraft Forever is set to launch on November 4, and principal game designer Kris Zierhut has shared insights into the decision to introduce the new Skyborne race.
Zierhut explained that a primary goal for adding the Skyborne was to increase the presence of elves in the game, a historically popular race. This addition also serves to maintain faction balance, which has been a challenge with the existing races from the Classic Era.
He noted that a portion of the player base prefers more conventionally attractive characters over the more monstrous races like Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, or Undead. "There's a certain... a lot of players who don't want to play a monster, to put it really honestly," Zierhut stated. "They want to have something that looks prettier. It's not everybody."
The team opted to create a new elf race rather than utilizing Blood Elves to avoid conflicting with storylines being developed for the retail version of World of Warcraft. Zierhut mentioned that the Forever team intends to let the retail team's Silvermoon storyline conclude before potentially exploring that area in future updates.
Looking ahead, Blizzard has outlined a content update schedule for World of Warcraft Forever that will be slower than the rapid patch cycle of the modern game. The team is also considering revisiting familiar expansion locations such as Northrend and Pandaria in future content additions.