{"id":2185418,"date":"2026-10-08T11:35:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T08:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2185418"},"modified":"2026-10-08T11:35:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T08:35:03","slug":"blizzard-is-changing-the-appearance-of-wow-forevers-new-skyborne-race-in-response-to-community-feedback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2185418","title":{"rendered":"Blizzard is changing the appearance of WoW: Forever&#8217;s new Skyborne race in response to community feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/world-of-warcraft-forever\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      World of Warcraft: Forever<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Blizzard is changing the appearance of WoW: Forever&#8217;s new Skyborne race in response to community feedback<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">Model matters.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/world-of-warcraft-forever-skyborn-work-in-progress-models.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"World of Warcraft: Forever work in progress Skyborne elves\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"world-of-warcraft-forever-skyborn-work-in-progress-models.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Blizzard<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/connor-makar\">Connor Makar<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Reporter<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\n<p>Published on   <time datetime=\"2026-10-08T11:35:03+00:00\" data-auto-time-zone=\"true\" data-year=\"numeric\" data-month=\"short\" data-day=\"numeric\" data-hour=\"numeric\" data-minute=\"numeric\">Oct. 8, 2026, 11:35 a.m.<\/time>\n              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/world-of-warcraft-forever-skyborne-character-model?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          2 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"header_actions\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"24add43a-f33b-4f3e-b943-b8a183e1d345\" data-name=\"World of Warcraft: Forever\" data-follow-text=\"Follow World of Warcraft: Forever\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following World of Warcraft: Forever\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow World of Warcraft: Forever\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following World of Warcraft: Forever\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow World of Warcraft: Forever\" title=\"Follow World of Warcraft: Forever\"><br \/>\n  Follow World of Warcraft: Forever<br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n  <a class=\"button outline wide preferred_source_button\" data-component=\"preferred-source-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=eurogamer.net\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n    <span class=\"logo\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><br \/>\nPrioritise us on Google  <\/a>\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\" data-autopogo>\n<p>World of Warcraft: Forever&#8217;s developers have announced drastic visual changes to the game&#8217;s new Skyborne race following passionate community feedback. These include new in-game models that better represent the game&#8217;s early MMO aesthetic, much to the community&#8217;s delight.<\/p>\n<p>The World of Warcraft community first caught wind of these changes during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uDRcv_w85j8&amp;t=4146s\">a recent episode of the official World of Warcraft: Forever podcast<\/a>, in which senior game designer Josh &#8220;Aggrend&#8221; Greenfield acknowledged impassioned feedback of the Skyborne humanoid and druid character models. While he didn&#8217;t have anything to announce then, he said the team &#8220;hoped to have something more substantive to say pretty soon&#8221;. And &#8220;pretty soon&#8221; now seems to have arrived.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s the World of Warcraft new race and class combo trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8-PJaWoPzUE\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com\/en-us\/news\/24302546\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\">blog post detailing these changes<\/a>, published on the World of Warcraft website, starts by establishing the team&#8217;s aim to &#8220;uphold the original WoW era aesthetic&#8221; while offering more choice in how they experience Azeroth. It then admits that some of the team&#8217;s ideas around the visual fidelity of certain new additions missed the mark: specifically the Skyborne models. The blog notes: &#8220;The Skyborne are from an exotic environment, and their Druid forms reflect that, but we don&#8217;t want that to be dissonant with the visual language of other creatures in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Both versions of the Skyborne elves in World of Warcraft: Forever will be altered to better align with the rest of the game. The blog shows side-by-side comparison before-and-after images, which highlight the models&#8217; softness being removed, colour saturation lowered, and more detailed fur textures added.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt height=\"616\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/image_csyNG8b.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 2.0779220779220777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"image_csyNG8b.png\" height=\"616\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 2.0779220779220777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Perhaps what&#8217;s more exciting, especially to World of Warcraft: Forever players who value retro visuals, is word of planned changes to the standard definition models. The blog agrees with feedback that the standard definition Skyborne models could feel &#8220;jarring&#8221; next to the game&#8217;s legacy races, and confirms that new standard definition models are in the works, with a planned release in early 2027. For now, an image of work-in-progress characters was included. Look at those sharp angles! You could cut an apple on those.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/image_ktSRXW9.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"image_ktSRXW9.png\" height=\"720\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The response to this blog post has been largely glowing. Comments on the Blizzard forums have expressed delight at this shift in direction: Take Solforge, the level 85 Paladin, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/wow\/t\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\/2375330\/14\">who wrote<\/a>: &#8220;So much better. Unbelievable how much of an impact this has. This gives me faith.&#8221; Alison, another Paladin, expressed their approval, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/wow\/t\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\/2375330\/15\">writing<\/a>: &#8220;I think the new druid forms look Soooo much better! The colors stand out to me more but not in a loud bright neon way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Shimmying over to the popular World of Warcraft Reddit, and the mood is similarly joyful. Notably, many players are expressing their appreciation at the WoW Forever team&#8217;s eagerness to respond to community feedback so quickly and openly. One popular thread is titled: &#8220;Ignore the toxic positivity. Disregard the brigaders. Keep giving feedback. Keep being vocal. Forever team is GOATed and they&#8217;re listening.&#8221; The thread highlights not only these changes, but also the recent decision by Blizzard to lower the rarity of dungeon loot so quest rewards aren&#8217;t devalued, and the decision to change the races&#8217; headshots in the character creator from Modern WoW&#8217;s headshots to those found in Classic WoW.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that they tweaked these rather minor things and even changed the icons is honestly in my eyes monumental,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/classicwow\/comments\/1wvukwn\/comment\/pdfum4u\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button\">wrote user Ubberman<\/a>. &#8220;Who are these people? That is an exceedingly high response rate and for rather minor things that only add to the feel. If they keep this up for even a year, WoW Forever will genuinely be the best World of Warcraft version to date. Genuinely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>World of Warcraft: Forever may still only be in beta, but it&#8217;s already proving mighty popular. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/world-of-warcraft-forever-beta-server-cap-increase\">The server cap had to be increased due to player demand<\/a>, and early critique of this introductory version of the upcoming MMO &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/world-of-warcraft-forever-outstanding\">including ours<\/a> &#8211; is largely positive. WoW Forever launches in full on 4th November.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\" data-autopogo>\n<p>World of Warcraft: Forever&#8217;s developers have announced drastic visual changes to the game&#8217;s new Skyborne race following passionate community feedback. These include new in-game models that better represent the game&#8217;s early MMO aesthetic, much to the community&#8217;s delight.<\/p>\n<p>The World of Warcraft community first caught wind of these changes during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uDRcv_w85j8&amp;t=4146s\">a recent episode of the official World of Warcraft: Forever podcast<\/a>, in which senior game designer Josh &#8220;Aggrend&#8221; Greenfield acknowledged impassioned feedback of the Skyborne humanoid and druid character models. While he didn&#8217;t have anything to announce then, he said the team &#8220;hoped to have something more substantive to say pretty soon&#8221;. And &#8220;pretty soon&#8221; now seems to have arrived.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s the World of Warcraft new race and class combo trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8-PJaWoPzUE\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com\/en-us\/news\/24302546\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\">blog post detailing these changes<\/a>, published on the World of Warcraft website, starts by establishing the team&#8217;s aim to &#8220;uphold the original WoW era aesthetic&#8221; while offering more choice in how they experience Azeroth. It then admits that some of the team&#8217;s ideas around the visual fidelity of certain new additions missed the mark: specifically the Skyborne models. The blog notes: &#8220;The Skyborne are from an exotic environment, and their Druid forms reflect that, but we don&#8217;t want that to be dissonant with the visual language of other creatures in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Both versions of the Skyborne elves in World of Warcraft: Forever will be altered to better align with the rest of the game. The blog shows side-by-side comparison before-and-after images, which highlight the models&#8217; softness being removed, colour saturation lowered, and more detailed fur textures added.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt height=\"616\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/image_csyNG8b.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 2.0779220779220777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"image_csyNG8b.png\" height=\"616\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 2.0779220779220777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Perhaps what&#8217;s more exciting, especially to World of Warcraft: Forever players who value retro visuals, is word of planned changes to the standard definition models. The blog agrees with feedback that the standard definition Skyborne models could feel &#8220;jarring&#8221; next to the game&#8217;s legacy races, and confirms that new standard definition models are in the works, with a planned release in early 2027. For now, an image of work-in-progress characters was included. Look at those sharp angles! You could cut an apple on those.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/image_ktSRXW9.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"image_ktSRXW9.png\" height=\"720\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The response to this blog post has been largely glowing. Comments on the Blizzard forums have expressed delight at this shift in direction: Take Solforge, the level 85 Paladin, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/wow\/t\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\/2375330\/14\">who wrote<\/a>: &#8220;So much better. Unbelievable how much of an impact this has. This gives me faith.&#8221; Alison, another Paladin, expressed their approval, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/wow\/t\/world-of-warcraft-forever-the-future-of-skyborne-visual-updates\/2375330\/15\">writing<\/a>: &#8220;I think the new druid forms look Soooo much better! The colors stand out to me more but not in a loud bright neon way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Shimmying over to the popular World of Warcraft Reddit, and the mood is similarly joyful. Notably, many players are expressing their appreciation at the WoW Forever team&#8217;s eagerness to respond to community feedback so quickly and openly. One popular thread is titled: &#8220;Ignore the toxic positivity. Disregard the brigaders. Keep giving feedback. Keep being vocal. Forever team is GOATed and they&#8217;re listening.&#8221; The thread highlights not only these changes, but also the recent decision by Blizzard to lower the rarity of dungeon loot so quest rewards aren&#8217;t devalued, and the decision to change the races&#8217; headshots in the character creator from Modern WoW&#8217;s headshots to those found in Classic WoW.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that they tweaked these rather minor things and even changed the icons is honestly in my eyes monumental,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/classicwow\/comments\/1wvukwn\/comment\/pdfum4u\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button\">wrote user Ubberman<\/a>. &#8220;Who are these people? That is an exceedingly high response rate and for rather minor things that only add to the feel. If they keep this up for even a year, WoW Forever will genuinely be the best World of Warcraft version to date. Genuinely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>World of Warcraft: Forever may still only be in beta, but it&#8217;s already proving mighty popular. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/world-of-warcraft-forever-beta-server-cap-increase\">The server cap had to be increased due to player demand<\/a>, and early critique of this introductory version of the upcoming MMO &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/world-of-warcraft-forever-outstanding\">including ours<\/a> &#8211; is largely positive. WoW Forever launches in full on 4th November.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News World of Warcraft: Forever Blizzard is changing the appearance of WoW: Forever&#8217;s new Skyborne race in response to community feedback Model matters. Image credit: Blizzard News by Connor Makar Reporter Published on Oct. 8, 2026, 11:35 a.m. 2 comments Follow World of Warcraft: Forever Prioritise us on Google World of Warcraft: Forever&#8217;s developers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2185418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2185418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2185418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2185418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2185418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}