Dataminer Marlamin has uncovered early maps of the upcoming Midnight expansion in the files of the first public Forever beta build — the key zones look nearly finished, though some maps are still a work in progress.

In the files of the first public beta build of World of Warcraft: Forever, dataminer Marlamin discovered early maps of locations from the upcoming Midnight expansion. The find was made possible because all current versions of WoW share part of their assets: what was meant for one project ended up in the other's client.

Why Midnight Maps Are in Forever

Blizzard has long used a shared client base for different WoW branches — Forever and the modern version. This is convenient for players, since there's no need to keep two installs — but it has a side effect: material made for one project sometimes ends up in the other's files. According to Marlamin, the maps found correspond to the retail patches 11.1 or 11.2 era — roughly January 2025. Only the maps remain in Forever, without the zones they belong to.

What Exactly Marlamin Found

The maps found fall into several groups.

• Midnight's key zones. The expansion's main locations look finished — the level of detail on the maps is typical of a late development stage.
• Unfinished areas. Spire Isle and a number of dungeons are still rough — maps for these zones are clearly still being worked on.
• Housing districts. Marlamin also found working maps for Founder's Camp and Thornwind Shores — these are new housing zones in Midnight, with little detail known so far.
• A mix of Forever and Midnight. The maps of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms are stitched together from two versions: in places you can read the Forever variant, in others — Midnight. Apparently, only the maps remain in the client, while the actual locations have already been replaced.

What This Tells Us

For Forever itself, the find changes nothing: players will play in its own world, and the Midnight maps in its files are a side effect of the shared codebase, not a hint at a crossover. But for those following Midnight's development, the find is interesting: it shows which zones Blizzard considered key back in January 2025, and which areas are still being worked on. Marlamin published the find on his own — the post itself contains links to specific maps: Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Founder's Camp, Thornwind Shores, Voidstorm, Maisara's Caverns, Slayer's Spike. You can open them in a browser and use the menu on the left to compare them with the Forever version of the same territory.