Blizzard has confirmed: the first two raids open at launch on November 4, 2026, with Onyxia's Lair for 40 players joining as the third on December 9. Group sizes are strictly fixed at 10 and 20 players — no flexible size and no attunement at launch.

At Forever's launch, raids open with strictly fixed sizes, no required quest chain before the run, and an opening schedule spread across a month. Several members of the team confirmed this after BlizzCon: senior designer Anna Resendez, lead designer Clayton Stone, and Blizzard producer Mike Natals gave concrete numbers for each raid. For guilds and solo players, this means a different way of planning — not "when do we get together" but "who fills the slot and when is this even playable".

First month schedule

At launch on November 4, 2026 (23:00 UTC) two raids open at once, and a third joins them a month later. The full picture of the first season:

• November 4, 2026 — Barrow Deeps for 10 players and Hyjal Summit for 20 players. Both are available right at launch.
• December 9, 2026 — Onyxia's Lair for 40 players. This is the first raid with a "classic" headcount; Blizzard had previously only shown it as an image on the roadmap, and naming 40 outright in text is a first.

The beta (September 17 — October 21, 2026) does not cover the raid schedule: they only open in the season. A month and a half of beta is for leveling, talents, and dungeons.

Group sizes: what changes for the guild

The roster matches a specific number, not "however many show up online". The numbers are fixed and varied:

| Raid | Size | Opens on | |---|---|---| | Barrow Deeps | 10 players | November 4, 2026 | | Hyjal Summit | 20 players | November 4, 2026 | | Onyxia's Lair | 40 players | December 9, 2026 |

Asked about flexible group size and difficulty scaling to the roster, Anna Resendez said: "Right now there are no plans for that." That's not an idle caveat: in the modern version of the game the same raid opens for any party size from 10 to 30, and players used to that scheme won't see it in Forever. Barrow Deeps needs exactly ten, Hyjal needs exactly twenty, Onyxia needs exactly forty — no backup "+1" at log-in and no automatic role balancing for the size.

No prep required in advance

Attunement is the mandatory quest chain that in the original Classic you had to complete to enter the raid. Preparation stretched across weeks, and anyone who joined later fell behind the party.

In Forever at launch this chain is gone: "no attunement required", says Stone. The question "will attunement return in future raids" he sidestepped carefully — "I think that's a question we shouldn't answer today." The phrasing sounds like reluctance to disclose something already being discussed inside the team, so you can't read it as a promise that attunement will never return. But for the next season this removes a whole class of pre-raid routine: you show up at the raid — and you go.

Raids arrive before the level cap

Another detail that shifts expectations: raid content is tuned not only for level 60. Some raids are designed for 40+, meaning group endgame begins before the level cap, not after. You can see this in Hyjal and Onyxia, which historically in WoW are run long before the cap. At Forever's start you can't test this — both of those raids open in the season — but the game's progression itself is designed so the group comes together earlier than the character hits the level ceiling.

Why the course is more cautious than Season of Discovery

The most substantive part of the conversation was about the measure of changes. Stone said the team consciously stepped back from the Season of Discovery approach: "We're starting on the more conservative side. We've heard feedback that in Season of Discovery we pushed the boundaries as far as you possibly can." Season of Discovery added abilities to classes that the original Classic never had, and reshaped familiar dungeons — some players liked it, but part of the community felt the game had stopped being Classic.

In Forever the changes are set up differently: talents were reassembled, loot was rewritten, but the skeleton stayed vanilla — 51 points across three trees, level cap at 60, no zone-level scaling to the character. Hence the fixed raid sizes and the lack of attunement: Blizzard holds the line of "this is still Classic, just with edits".

In practice

• Plan your leveling and gearing around three different rosters: 10, 20, and 40 players. There is no universal "10 to 30" raid.
• You can head into the first raid straight away: no mandatory quest chain to complete, no attunement.
• By December 9, 2026 keep your level and gear in shape: the opening of Onyxia's Lair will be the guild's first test of a "classic" 40-player roster.
• If Blizzard later introduces attunement — keep an eye on blue posts and news; right now there's no confirmation of that.
• The beta (September 17 — October 21, 2026) won't show raids: you'll only be able to test them in the season, starting from the November 4 launch.