On the second day of the World of Warcraft: Forever open beta, September 18, 2026, the developers held a Q&A and closed out the three most-discussed questions from the community: there will be no rated PvP, no cross-faction play either, and dungeons and raids will have a single difficulty level. Greenfield is launching a separate beta podcast.

The arenas question had been hanging over since the BlizzCon announcement on September 12, 2026 — five days before the open beta kicked off, the team still hadn't commented on rated PvP, and the community read that silence as a worrying sign. At the September 18, 2026 Q&A, a direct question got an equally direct answer: there will be no rated PvP in Forever. Two other long-standing questions — about cross-faction play and about difficulty levels — were also settled in a single day.

No rated PvP. This was the headline answer of the evening. The arenas question had been kicking around since BlizzCon on September 12, 2026, and during the first days of the beta the developers' silence on it felt suspicious — now the reason is clear. The decision is final: no rated modes are planned for Forever.

No cross-faction play. The second firm "no": the Alliance and Horde in Forever stay as separate factions, and no joint play between them is planned.

One difficulty level for dungeons and raids. The third point covers endgame content: every Forever dungeon and raid will have a single difficulty. There will be no Heroic or Mythic variants — and no flexible raids like modern WoW has.

A beta podcast. Separately, Greenfield is launching a dedicated podcast to run alongside the open beta. The beta runs from September 17 to October 21, 2026, and Forever's release is scheduled for November 4, 2026 at 23:00 UTC (November 5, 02:00 Moscow time). Across the five weeks of testing, the podcast will become the main regular source of official answers.