Blizzard Confirms Playable High Elves for WoW: Forever

In today’s live Q&A Stream, the WoW: Forever segment kicked off with Josh Greenfield answering a question about what went into the development and decisions around the Skyborne, and how do the Skyborne relate to the High Elves and Blood Elves of Azeroth.

High Elves Confirmed as Playable Race

Josh’s answer to the question of “Why aren’t High Elves playable but Skyborne are?” was “Why not both?”. This all but gaurantees that High Elves will be coming to WoW: Forever as a future playable race.

Greenfield went on to explain that it just didn’t feel right to introduce them at this point in the game’s lifetime. One of the reasons was that the vision they had for High Elves was a bit “too big” to tie into a starting zone like we have for the Skyborne. He also mentions the “time bubble” WoW: Forever takes place in, and how High Elves didn’t fit into the chronology of the launch state of Azeroth.

He said the team mulled over the idea of having High Elves start in Northshire Abbey, but I think we can all agree (as did the team) that wouldn’t feel right and wouldn’t be giving High Elves the development time and effort they deserved.

The Skyborne Pivot

Instead of forcing High Elves to work, the team pivoted to the Skyborne which tied nicely into some of the ideas they had, specifically around the Thunderfury Legendary Questline and how the Skyborne could play into that story.

The team seems very excited narrative-wise about the Skyborne, and how they will tie into future story beats, and honestly hearing this has myself more excited as well - even though I don’t see a Skyborne character in my future!

The Skyborne also give us something we’ve never really had - a High Elf looking Druid and Shaman, which is unique to WoW: Forever and offers a beenfit from