World of Warcraft: Forever is almost here, and its title appears nakedly confident. Not a simple re-release like 2019's World of Warcraft: Classic, Forever positions itself as a do-over. It's not restoring the past, it's using the past to create a new, less convoluted future. It's all in the title. This version of the game is meant to last, well, forever. Blizzard's bravado can be seen on full display with the November 4th release date, a mere 15 days before Grand Theft Auto VI – the most hyped video game of all time – hits the shelves. All indications so far seem to be that Forever is on course to be an exceptional hit: Blizzard has stated, of course, that it’s their biggest beta, and this self-promotion is supported by classicplus.io tracking about one million characters created. One million could be as large as a seventh of the base game’s subscriber count, and is even several times the population of Iceland. There’s a tremendous enthusiasm for an fresh take on the WoW experience avoiding now impossible-to-remove design pitfalls like flying mounts. But the there’s little which appears new in this business decision, Forever being a calculated attempt to mend the trust between developers and players.
Forever’s approach is to remix the familiar base game. Players return to 2004's Azeroth but there's new quests, a new race, new dungeons, a more relaxed trajectory, and a meta that hasn't been solved to the decimal point on private servers over the last 20 years. The design of this game seems to be based around “horizontal progression”, if the concept is viewed as meaning a gentler rollout of content. In other words, the brutal 8-week cadence of new content present in "retail" World of Warcraft (the main version of the game) forces players onto a hamster wheel. Stop playing for a few months and your character is woefully behind. The intent is that Forever will live up to its name: slowly lifting the curtain on new parts of the world, replacing the rug-whip of new expansions and level cap leaps. It’s a way of expanding World of Warcraft that implies an emphasis on player experience and making the time spent in game feel valuable.
Blizzard’s title is a slow-moving titan, however, and is not the first in the genre to take this tack. EverQuest Legends recently brought back the grandparent of MMOs, paring it back to before 25 years of expansions. Old School RuneScape was the pioneer before that, cementing a version of the game that maintains the exceptionally chunky graphics remembered from my high school days. It’s the case, however, that RuneScape’s trajectory suggests the endless nature of this second-guessing and endless appeasement. The core game has rumbled on through two subsequent iterations, evolving into 2 and 3, and then tried to stave dissatisfaction by spinning off into RuneScape Reignited. The bulk of comments in response to the YouTube announcement, ten days later, were mocking of the brazen attempt to brush over past failures. The subtitle itself was more damningly honest than the self-aggrandizement of Legends and Forever: it spoke clearly of trying to spark a dwindling flame. It's ironic, then, that this is all historic given it's already been cancelled (after less than two weeks!), giving gamers the clearest look at how desperately they're being appeased.
No matter how high subscriber numbers may be and exciting fresh beginnings are, there’s a pervasive discontent that goes beyond simple tweaks. High populations have, for a long time, not existed purely because of enjoyment and established friendships. My first real indication of this came at least a decade ago on Final Fantasy XIV, probably the strongest contender for World of Warcraft’s crown. One of my guildmates was spending his spare time grinding for gear, an activity which commonly becomes central to MMOs once you’ve sunk enough hours into play. He didn’t refute my claim that it sounded tedious but doubled-down, unequivocally stating that grind is the game’s identity. That conversation, only a few years into the game’s lifespan, helped create an image of subscriptions as worse than a necessary evil. Subscriptions might keep servers running but, like the myriad ways MMOs leech money, lure players to sink time and money for intangible reward.
Final Fantasy XIV has great cracks in its foundation, no matter the marketing campaign suggesting hours and hours of free trial fun. Eorzea is a gorgeous world with rich lore, exciting combat, and a warm, welcoming player base. FFXIV, despite the richness of its setting, forces players through a tremendous slog in the base game; nonstop fetch quests render thrilling dungeons and (well-written!) narrative progression moot. The modern age of gaming allows access to decades of incredible RPGs, and both players and developers must know how creaky such design feels. For those of us early adopters, however, who missed the free trial, the only option for play is to subscribe and let your dopamine-seeking side keep you going until the next good bit. For newer players who do make their way through, then it’s the sunk cost fallacy in action once again. After spending countless hours wasting your time, how could you not subscribe and try to regain the value of that irreplaceable time?
Guild Wars 2 has always been an appealing MMO because of its apparent generosity towards players, having been subscription free from the time it was a full retail release. This lack of subscription, coupled with a base game that quickly became totally free, make it unsurprising that it’s still heavily populated nearly fifteen years post-release. New players will likely find themselves enraptured by so many aspects of the game: impeccable art design, a content-stuffed world, and a great number of people careening about from the very start. It may have come out in 2012 but still appears to be a pioneer in lively, aesthetically-pleasing play that works to keep you engaged at all times.
And yet there’s a gaudy quality to it that irks, and is particularly discomfiting if you’ve been playing it’s predecessor. The original Guild Wars is about instanced quests, taking a small party of fellow players – or AI henchmen – outside of busy towns into open areas that are devoid of other players. This sequel, however, is less like playing a single-player game than opening up a gambling app. XP earned flashes up in yellow text; group and solo events turn up around every corner; future earnings (at the next major level) are teased hours ahead of achievement; time-limited XP boosts encourage you to get as frantic as you can. There’s a constant flood of reward plus a desire to keep receiving it – and a forever-shifting distance from where you think you want to get.
The "high fantasy slot machine" design reduces this expansive fantasy world into a giant farm, reflected in the joylessness of shared experience. If you’re on at the right time then you may very well end up bouncing around a map with many other players, trying to earn the rewards of taking on big group activities. It feels like this should be a breeding ground for human connection, supporting the chance to bond outside a guild or the constraints of a dungeon. It’s very rare for anyone to even offer a “gg” as recognition of teamwork, though, and one offered will rarely be returned. The gacha mentality of endlessly achieving more has crept into the form of gaming that implies community in its very name.
There’s a weird, unholy combination here of compulsive play and the desire not to play. Dopamine hits ultimately create their own boredom through repetition; the reality that greater achievement is increasingly needed to induce the same high. This is partly where the frantic, lifeless play comes in, with the desperation to once again get the joy the game once promised. This is also where the supposedly optional chance to spend real world money meets with the biological impulse to feel some semblance of joy. Guild Wars 2 offers an expansive, intricate story and a range of stunning sights, but it also gives you plenty of paid ways to bypass them. A welcome pack (approx. £8), harvesting tool (approx. £10), combat skills (approx. £6-8); all of these can get you ahead quickly without hours of your time.
For anyone with a modicum of interest in MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is the biggest release in a vast sea of apparently generously-given free-to-play titles. Many of these games, however, have similar mechanics at play – or even more insidious ones. A common feature is the opportunity to buy experience boosters, either allowing easier attainment or bypassing a whole level range entirely. Neverwinter is one of the most disappointing titles in its willingness to forget its focus on a fun game. It has always been lesser-known but was once particularly innovative, boasting the ability for players to create in-game content, delivering a more robust RPG experience as a result compared to other massively multiplayer titles. Now, however, such functions have been dropped. New players are slapped into the vast world in media res, creating a bewildering mess. The silent treatment your real-life party members offer seems reflective of an experience that’s more about content than play.
World of Warcraft isn’t totally immune to tedium, despite its position as genre leader. One player I spoke to had played the game since around 2010, and still found questing and levelling to be incredibly dull over a decade later. Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, and countless other games released in the intervening years, and yet there’s still been no radical change. World of Warcraft, at least, doesn’t have a moment-to-moment gacha journey that regularly worms its way into your pocket. In fact, its lively and well-tended “newcomer chat” – accessible to players below level 20 – suggests a real (or at least more pronounced) emphasis on player engagement. Chances are, of course, that you might be tempted to shell out 20 quid on changing realms once you realise you’ve started off in a dead one. And if you've lasted long enough in the game, why not grab a $90 dinosaur to ride around on? Or maybe spend some time playing WoW's version of Fortnite. Or WoW's upcoming APRG-roguelike mode. Or some other non-WoW-game built in WoW to make sure you keep paying a subscription fee to keep earning cosmetic items.
The other big long term hook for these games remains community, and nowhere is this more evident than in a different game that should otherwise be terrible. Tower of Fantasy is one of many gacha releases that came in the wake of Genshin Impact, presenting a vast open world focused around combat, exploration, and gliding. Of course, all of them are really derivatives of Breath of the Wild, and replace that hit’s retail price with a bevvy of currencies and microtransactions. Their stories are strung out, generic fantasy, seemingly all geared around moving your focus to purchasing pretty new anime-styled characters. And, despite all this, Tower of Fantasy has a unique appeal in its massively multiplayer vibes.
The game world might be a relatively solitary one, NPCs replaced by a combat focus, but the chat is very much alive. I was surprised to ask a brief question and have a range of engaged responses, even with a text character limit in play. There was tongue-in-cheek bickering, a lengthy conversation, and even the offer of help to progress. Of course, there was a significant amount of griping about the game’s nature, too, with players aware that they’re in a gacha game: surface appeal and pocket-raiding depths. Tower of Fantasy isn’t doing anything particularly special, given that its Steam daily player count is generally in the hundreds. Instead, players will gladly take community wherever they can find it, even when the fun’s gone.
And it seems to be that the warm and welcoming communities are not the norm, even when a narrative is geared towards inclusivity. Guild Wars 2 is regularly thought of as an MMO with significant queer appeal, and the narrative introduces both gay relationships and trans characters. A cursory online search reveals a great number of conversations around the question of whether Guild Wars 2 is “woke”. The in-game reality is not just the loneliness, even selfishness, that is born from a grind-heavy title. The reality’s that tolerance and respect aren’t universal, and enjoying time with people requires finding your own, non-massive pocket of community.
I spoke over Discord with the leader of one of my guilds, eager to get a sense of what their experience is like. The guild itself is inclusive and actively playing together most weeks. My assumption, or at least my hope, was that their time with the game would be a widely positive one. Running a successful guild requires commitment, after all, and it’s hard to imagine you’d choose to be in something intolerable. However, she stated that she only “keep[s] to my in game alliance and guild these days”, and that she even “became enemy of a few guilds” for protecting marginalized members. It might be a game that ostensibly is about liberation, that gives power to women and trans characters, yet the in-game world is a struggle reflective of toxic reality. In the World of Warcraft: Forever beta, players flooded the world with offensive names and then harassed a developer off Twitter/"X" when he expressed "no sympathy" for banned players.
Developers could address the issue of community in any MMO. But is there a financial incentive? Is there a financial incentive to address any of the issues presenting themselves across modern MMOs?
As far as communication is concerned, this isn't just about hate speech, but the isolation and dopamine-hunting at the core of why people play MMOs. In other words, design philosophies of endlessly prodding the user to see how much they tolerate before they leave and take their money with them. The simplest of design decisions give an indication of where priorities lie. World of Warcraft has an expansive set of busy realms, but Europe has one clear premier place for roleplaying: Argent Dawn. It’s currently marked as full, however, so a new player might sink hours into another server to discover that cities are more like ghost towns. Blizzard could close down servers or discount transfers, but why bother if someone will stump up money to compensate for wasted time or for a more active group of players (or just any players)? Money-driven “solutions” are surely more appealing to the suits than clearing the detritus of twenty-two years of design decisions.
Massive marketing-driven launches still accompany the growing likes of World of Warcraft, but this masks a now pervasive creakiness to the franchise's foundations and to those of the genre at large: what's good for the c-suite is fundamentally in opposition to what is good for the long-term health of the game. Are people realizing? . PC Gamer’s review of the latest expansion, Midnight, is mostly positive at 83, yet it slams preceding expansions, and notes Midnightsometimes exudes a “whiff.” Blizzard has struggled with quality control issues in recent patches, with Warcraft news YouTuber Bellular saying the dev team's current approach of breakneck 8-week content cycles "is genuinely killing the game" (though he has probably said this more than once). Fans are also upset about the generic, often slapdash nature of Warcraft's storytelling.
Final Fantasy XIV is not immune from criticism here. Its players widely agree developer Square Enix is fumbling with its low-stakes Dawntrail expansion. Guild Wars 2, which should reach triumphant climax before its sequel, is still seen as finding its footing beyond its core – reflected in the recent change to yearly expansions. The status quo for these behemoths is to begin blindingly, albeit with negligible faults, but then progress like a soap opera to diminishing returns.
The dissatisfaction, and the yearning for something different than what exists today -- either in terms of friendlier design or better stories -- has been evident in the barely-repressible rise of private servers. Blizzard has been playing legal whack-a-mole against these servers since famed vanilla World of Warcraft private server Nostalrius became popular in 2015. Most recently, it successfully closed TurtleWoW, a popular server that morphed into the expansive OctoWow. It’s a different move to the current owners of EverQuest, Daybreak, who made a formal agreement for the existence of classic, not-for-profit Project 1999. MMOs are lucrative products but they are also role-playing worlds that gamers are deeply invested in, and the companies operating these worlds are only just starting to understand this...and how to hide it better. Blizzard won't charge you $90 for a reskinned dinosaur mount but they'll let you buy it for five million gold (and then upsell you another two million gold on extra features) which you can earn in game...or purchase by means of a WoW token.
The term enshittification, far cliched by October 2026, is so for a reason. You make a lot of money turning your MMO into a marketplace, or into a casino where players gamble with their time if they're not gambling with their money. Fans are sick of it, and some developers have answered. The most obvious attempts are developers trying to have their cake and eat it; World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and RuneScape chucking out distractions in the form of classic and remixed versions of their games. But there are indie developers, too, who aren't driven by maintaining colossal virtual moneymakers. Monsters & Memories is the latest, having launched at the start of October, and feels extremely aptly timed. What I found on its first weekend was a sense of shared discovery that's missing from largely titles, baked into mechanics like the limited tutorials and easy early deaths. Most heartening was the sight of players huddling together as the sun set; a far cry from games which bombard you with individualistic opportunities to hungrily farm for XP.
World of Warcraft: Forever might be exciting for a while but, like all of WoW's changes, the freshness is bound to curdle. It's just one arm of a corporate machine that, at its heart, is about players spending money. "Pay us to redo the game our avarice ruined over the last 20 years. Pay to be part of the beta test. Pay to unlock blue elves. Pay." It's not like there's even a great experience-driven core at the heart of the retail game, either. Critics have panned the "theme park" nature of the design since release.
For the MMO genre there are two futures: One is a great future where developers finally realize a massive world only means something if it's populated with players who care and who feel their time isn't deliberately being wasted. The other is Blizzard releasing World of Warcraft: Eternity in the distant future after World of Warcraft: Forever – like retail World of Warcraft before it – becomes engorged with 22 years of poorly thought-out, profit-driven decisions that salt the soil for meaningful player growth. The fear is, of course, that players will keep accepting disappointing experiences if that's the bulk of what’s offered to them. It's impossible to see a future of mass migration to games prioritizing community and play over addiction-adjacent behaviours. What is needed here is an even more vocal fanbase, a fanbase that rightly is entitled after spending thousands on things that deliver less and less of the promise laid down decades ago.
Ceridwen Millington is a culture critic with experience writing about video games of all stripes for publications like MMORPG.com, IGN, Eurogamer, and The Guardian. She has an enduring passion through all her work in looking at social issues, whether it’s the ostracised characters of Bad Day on the Midway or the complex trans representation in Tell Me Why. Outside of her criticism she is an author of existential fiction and equally grim poetry! You can follow her work on Instagram @cerishorrorcupboard or Bluesky @cerimillington.bsky.social.