WoW Forever’s new lighting and water effects aren’t exclusive to the upcoming game. In a recent interview with IGN, Blizzard principal game designer Kris Zierhut confirms that similar improvements are planned for Retail WoW! The interview explores why Blizzard chose to introduce these upgrades in Forever first, how the team plans to preserve Classic’s visual identity, and why Zierhut believes WoW’s engine is still one of its greatest strengths.
Classic Azeroth, With a Modern Twist
According to Zierhut, part of the decision behind the visual update comes down to nostalgia!
After more than 20 years, players remember the original version of World of Warcraft as looking more impressive than it actually did. Blizzard wants to recreate that feeling by bringing the game’s visuals closer to the version players remember, while also appealing to a new generation of gamers.
As Zierhut explains, Blizzard wants to “bring in the next generation of gamers who are used to a lot of these higher graphical fidelity things” and introduce these improvements while maintaining “World of Warcraft’s classic style and visual aesthetic”. The new effects improve environmental details such as lighting, shadows, fog and water, giving Azeroth a fresh look without losing its core art style. The goal is to make the world more visually appealing to newcomers while preserving the atmosphere that long-time fans know and love.
Character models have followed the same philosophy. Players can choose between the original standard-definition models and their newer high-definition counterparts, with the option applying consistently to their character, NPCs and other players. This gives players control over how they experience the world without splitting the community’s visual experience.
Spaghetti Code? Blizzard Says Think Again
Bringing new lighting and water effects to WoW Forever raised questions about how easily the game’s engine can support modern graphical improvements, especially given its age. Zierhut pushes back against the community’s reputation of WoW’s engine as “spaghetti code”, calling it an “unfair player characterization”. He describes it as “one of the best game engines out there”, highlighting 25 years of continuous development that have improved performance, frame rates, server response times and the number of units the game can handle in one area.
Rather than seeing the engine’s age as a limitation, Zierhut believes its long history of refinement is one of its greatest strengths. He also acknowledges that bugs are inevitable in any software, arguing that these issues don’t mean the underlying engine is poorly built.
Forever Today, Retail Tomorrow?
Zierhut confirms that these graphical improvements aren’t exclusive to Forever. Blizzard is discussing bringing better lighting and water effects to modern WoW as well, explaining that they aren’t “a Forever-only feature” and that these changes “are coming for retail as well”. He couldn’t share a timeline, however, and only confirms that Blizzard is discussing the plans. Zierhut also clarifies that the visual updates “were made here first”, rather than dismissing Retail WoW completely, which also supports the notion that Blizzard would like to continue working on visual updates for both games!
Forever is the first to receive these visual upgrades, offering a glimpse of what the future holds for both versions of WoW. If Blizzard brings these improvements to Retail, players will get to experience a more atmospheric Azeroth without losing the art style that has defined the game for over two decades.
If you would like to know more about the visual updates that are coming to WoW Forever, and what could potentially be added to Retail WoW, then I’d recommend watching the Timeless World panel that took place at Blizzcon. Additionally, the full interview with IGN can be accessed here.
