After an exciting day yesterday with day one of BlizzCon, day 2 is now underway, and there is already unrest among World of Warcraft fans.

Yesterday’s announcement of WoW: Forever, the Skyborne race, and its paid Heroic Pack was truly exciting on the surface. However, players are already pushing back.

Blizzard is pitching WoW: Forever as a return to WoW’s roots, but some fans aren’t happy. While World of Warcraft: Forever itself is included with a normal WoW subscription or Game Time, access to its brand-new playable race is not.

What Are the Skyborne?

The Skyborne are a brand-new playable race created specifically for World of Warcraft: Forever.

Access to the Skyborne and their dedicated Zephras Isle starting area is included with the $29.99/£25.99 Skyborne Heroic Pack.

The Heroic Pack also includes extras such as Early Name Reservation, the Cerulean Prideclaw mount, cosmetics, housing items, and an Invite-A-Friend Launch Code.

The more expensive Skyborne Epic Pack includes everything from the Heroic Pack alongside beta access, 30 days of World of Warcraft Game Time, and additional bonuses.

The problem for some players is not simply that Blizzard is charging money for optional extras. It is what the $29.99 purchase actually unlocks.

Why Are Players Unhappy?

Historically, new playable WoW races have generally arrived as part of wider expansion content rather than being sold through a separate race unlock.

Here, Blizzard has made Forever available through the regular World of Warcraft subscription, which sounds extremely consumer-friendly on the surface, but placed its headline new playable race behind a separate $29.99/£25.99 upgrade.

That has led to concerns about what this could mean for Forever in the future.

Some fans are worried that if Blizzard is willing to sell a playable race separately now, this could become an ongoing model for Forever. New races, starting experiences, and potentially other meaningful pieces of playable content could become optional paid add-ons while Blizzard can still technically say that Forever itself is included with a World of Warcraft subscription.

This is therefore becoming more than a simple complaint about expensive DLC.

Some Fans Don’t Think the Skyborne Belong in Forever

Beyond concerns about a possible new business model, some Classic players don’t think the Skyborne belong in Forever at all.

Blizzard has heavily emphasized the idea of returning to and expanding the original Azeroth with Forever, rather than simply recreating the direction of modern retail WoW.

However, the Skyborne are an entirely new race created for Forever, rather than one of the long-requested existing World of Warcraft playable races such as High Elves, Ogres, Goblins, or Furbolgs.

Open letters and discussions have already appeared online questioning whether introducing a completely new race fits with Blizzard’s focus on expanding the original version of Azeroth.

Blizzard Explains Why It Chose Another Elf Race

Blizzard has already offered some reasoning behind its decision to introduce the Skyborne.

In an interview with Windows Central at BlizzCon, Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones explained that Blizzard knows elf characters are extremely popular with World of Warcraft players. He pointed to the introduction of Blood Elves and the dramatic effect they had on Horde and Alliance population balance as an example.

Principal Designer Kris Zierhut also explained that Blizzard has stories it wants to explore through the Skyborne as the team expands parts of Warcraft’s original world and history.

That explanation may not completely calm concerns.

If Blizzard already knows that elf races are particularly popular with World of Warcraft players, some fans are likely to question whether putting this particular race behind a $29.99/£25.99 purchase makes the decision more controversial rather than less.

Not Everyone Is Against the New Approach

Not every World of Warcraft player is against the way Blizzard is handling Forever.

Some fans argue that they would rather have the main Forever experience included with their existing subscription and pay separately for an optional race than have Blizzard charge every player an additional box price just to access Forever.

Under the current model, players who have no interest in the Skyborne can still play World of Warcraft: Forever when it launches without purchasing the Heroic Pack.

For those players, the optional $29.99 upgrade may be preferable to Blizzard charging everyone separately for World of Warcraft: Forever itself.

Whether the Skyborne Heroic Pack turns out to be a one-off experiment, or the beginning of a wider approach to paid content in Forever, remains to be seen. But within a day of the race being revealed at BlizzCon 2026, Blizzard has already given World of Warcraft fans plenty to argue about.