DiigiiWorld of Warcraft: Forever adds new zones along the way to max level, and Blizzard has now shown two of them in a video on its own channel. The Riverglades pick up where zones like Redridge Mountains used to leave you with nowhere to go. Mount Hyjal is where Blizzard says the leveling journey reaches its climax.
The Riverglades: the Second War never ended here
Alliance players meet the Brotherhood of the Horse, a name that goes back to Warcraft II. They were the most elite knights of Stormwind, and they fought at Blackrock Mountain. When that battle was won, Turalyon turned the army south toward the Dark Portal, intent on carrying the war to Draenor. The Brotherhood disobeyed. The scattered Horde was still loose in Alliance lands with nobody left to defend them, so the knights stayed to hunt it down, and in doing so broke with Stormwind and the Alliance for good. Blizzard leaves it open whether that was oath breaking or the more honourable path.
Twenty years on, the survivors hold Farholde Keep and still fight the Old Horde's remnants: the Twilight's Hammer clan and the Bolder'ok ogres.
For them, the Second War never truly ended.
Blizzard, in the video
Like Stranglethorn Vale, the zone has a Horde side too. Horde players get the Bolder'ok clan, ogres who once belonged to the Twilight's Hammer and walked away after seeing the madness that took so many of their kin after the Second War. They now live with enemies on every side. Their former masters sit in Krol'dok Stronghold next door, and the humans of Farholde compete with them for the open plains. Blizzard's point is that all of this has made them strong, independent and formidable.
Both sides end up fighting the Twilight's Hammer. Their motives are not explained; the video only says that wherever the clan goes, its dark masters are close behind. They hold Krol'dok Stronghold and Twilight's Shroud, which was the westernmost stronghold of the old Horde, and Blizzard calls that a threat to the whole of the Eastern Kingdoms.
Around that story sit the smaller quests that give a zone its character: wrecking a pirate operation, rescuing a horse, and something or someone called Jom-jom that the video only shouts. Deeper in ogre land is the Bloodmasters' Ring, a fighting pit where you take on the ogres' best brawlers.
Mount Hyjal: the gate opens
For five years Malfurion Stormrage and the druids kept Hyjal sealed. Now the road in is open for the first time since the Third War. You work with the Druids of the Talon and the rest of the Cenarion Circle to mend the land and rebuild what the Battle of Mount Hyjal destroyed. Horde and Alliance have also shared the mountain under an uneasy agreement all this time, and with the gates open the old tensions are rising again.
Then there is the Curious Crow. She is, as the video is careful to say, just a crow. She has still uncovered warlocks and something involving the Wild King, and she needs a hero because there is not much a crow can do about it herself.
The Barrow Deeps
Under the mountain waits the Barrow Deeps, Forever's new 10-player raid, set in a prison that once held Azeroth's most infamous betrayer. The video never says the name, but anyone who played Warcraft III will remember who the druids kept under Hyjal. It is one of the two raids Forever launches with; the other is Hyjal Summit, for 20 players.
- Riverglades
- Eastern Kingdoms. Dungeon: Krol'dok Stronghold
- Mount Hyjal
- Kalimdor. Raids: The Barrow Deeps (10 players) and Hyjal Summit (20 players)
- Launch
- 4 November 2026
I did not expect the Brotherhood of the Horse to come back. I remember them from the Warcraft II manual and nothing since. Staying behind to hunt the scattered Horde instead of marching through the portal reads as the honourable choice to me, oath or no oath. Hoping Farholde Keep has an inn, because that is where I will be parked for a while.