The short answer: you pick a ruleset, not a realm
World of Warcraft: Forever replaces the realm-selection screen with rulesets. You choose one before you create a character.
Normal, PvP and Roleplaying are available at launch. Blizzard says Hardcore arrives sometime after launch.
You can only group with players on the same ruleset, and Horde and Alliance still cannot group together.
Characters cannot move freely between rulesets. To play under another one, you create a new character there.
So if you are starting with friends, agreeing on ruleset and faction before anyone creates a character is the whole realm decision.
Everything below was re-checked on 2026-09-24 against Blizzard's news posts, forum blue posts, Blizzard Support and the three regional Battle.net stores.
The four rulesets side by side
| Ruleset | Open-world PvP | Factions you can create | Available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Only when you choose to | Both | At launch |
| PvP | Built around contested territory | One only | At launch |
| Roleplaying | Not described by Blizzard | Both | At launch |
| Hardcore | Not described by Blizzard | Both | After launchroadmap: winter |
Battlegrounds may mix players from different rulesets, except Hardcore. Ruleset post of 2026-09-21 and panel recap of 2026-09-13.
Normal is the baseline experience: exploration, questing and cooperation, with player-versus-player combat when you choose to engage in it. The September 13 panel recap phrases it as PvP requiring mutual consent.
PvP is for players who want every trip into contested territory to carry more danger and open-world conflict.
On the PvP ruleset you can only create characters for one faction. Blizzard also plans faction-balance systems similar to Season of Discovery, where new character creation could be temporarily limited for one faction.
Roleplaying is for players who want to lean into the fantasy of Azeroth and find like-minded adventurers. Blizzard's posts do not say how open-world PvP works on it.
Hardcore is for players who want every decision to matter, where death carries lasting consequences. It is not available at launch.
The official 2026–2027 roadmap image places the Hardcore launch in winter, after the December 9 raid unlock, and notes that content and timing are subject to change.
Who you can play with
| Activity | Same ruleset | Other ruleset |
|---|---|---|
| Group, dungeons, raids | Yessame faction | No |
| Battlegrounds | Yes | May mixnot Hardcore |
| Horde and Alliance in one group | No | No |
Players on the same ruleset can group, run dungeons and raid together.
Cross-ruleset grouping is not supported. A friend on Normal and a friend on PvP cannot run a dungeon together.
Factions also stay separate, so Horde and Alliance cannot share a group even on the same ruleset.
Battlegrounds may include players from other rulesets. Hardcore is the exception and stays separate there too.
You can also set a language preference to meet players who chose the same one: press Escape, open Options, then Languages and Social under System, and pick your Preferred Online Language.
That setting is account-wide, applies to every character, and has a 24-hour cooldown before you can change it again.
Can you change later, and what does it cost
| Question | Official answer |
|---|---|
| Move a character to another ruleset | Not possible; create a new character |
| Hardcore character dies | Can transfer to another ruleset, including PvP |
| Cost of any transfer or faction change | Not announced |
| Collections and Legacy Points | Account-wide; Hardcore is one-way |
| Second faction on PvP | Not possible once you picked one |
Movement between rulesets is intentionally limited. You cannot move a character to another ruleset; you create a new one there.
The one exception Blizzard describes is Hardcore: if a Hardcore character dies, that character can transfer to another ruleset, including PvP.
Blizzard has not said whether that transfer costs anything, or whether paid character transfers or faction changes will exist in Forever.
Collections and Legacy Points are account-wide across rulesets, so starting over on another ruleset keeps them.
Hardcore works one way only. Progress, collections and rewards from Hardcore can become available elsewhere, but progress from other rulesets does not flow into Hardcore.
On the PvP ruleset, once you create an Alliance character you cannot create a Horde character there, and vice versa. If you want both factions, Normal or Roleplaying allows that.
U.S., Europe and Korea: what differs by region
The realm list is gone, but regions are not. Blizzard's September 21 naming post says your full two-part character name must be unique within your region.
| Item | U.S. | Europe (Germany) | Korea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch date shown in store | November 4 | November 5 | November 5, 2026 |
| Official ruleset names | Normal, PvP, Roleplaying, Hardcore | Normal, PvP, Rollenspiel, Hardcore | 일반, 전쟁, 롤플레잉, 하드코어 |
| Move characters to another regionWoW support article | No | No | No |
| How regions are grouped for Forever | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
Store pages and Blizzard Support article 10695, checked 2026-09-24.
Blizzard Support states that World of Warcraft accounts, characters, progress, game time and items are region-locked and cannot be transferred to another region. To play in a different region, you buy a license there.
That support article covers World of Warcraft in general. We have not found a separate Forever-specific region article yet.
Battle.net lists Forever as available in the Americas and Oceania, Europe, Korea and Taiwan. This guide compares the U.S., German and Korean storefronts.
The en-US, de-DE and ko-KR ruleset posts announce the same four rulesets. Blizzard has not announced a ruleset exclusive to one of these regions.
In practice, if you plan to play with friends abroad, agree on the region you buy and play in before you agree on a ruleset.
The stores also show different launch dates: the U.S. store says November 4, while the German store and the Korean store say November 5.
Use the regional launch times page on this site for exact local times rather than inferring them from these dates.
Blizzard has not said how regions are grouped for Forever, for example whether Korea has its own ecosystem or shares one with other parts of Asia.
For Europe, a Blizzard community manager said on September 21 that routing to the Beta had been streamlined for EU testers, while some ISP-side issues may remain.
Which ruleset fits you, and a checklist before character creation
| If you want | Pick | Official basis |
|---|---|---|
| Dungeons and raids with friends | Their region, ruleset and faction | Regions are separate; no cross-ruleset or cross-faction groups |
| No unwanted open-world fights | Normal | PvP only when you choose |
| Open-world tension | PvP | Contested territory |
| Characters on both factions | Normal or Roleplaying | PvP allows one faction |
| Roleplay and immersion | Roleplaying | Like-minded adventurers |
| Permanent death stakes | Hardcoreafter launch | Not available at launch |
If you mainly want dungeons and raids with friends, play in the same region and pick the same ruleset and faction they did.
If you want quests without unwanted open-world fights, Normal fits. If you want that tension, PvP fits, as long as one faction is enough on it.
If you want an immersion-focused community, Roleplaying fits. If you are waiting for Hardcore, remember it opens after launch and progress from other rulesets will not carry into it.
① Check that you and your friends buy and play in the same region.
② Agree on the exact ruleset name.
③ Agree on a faction. On PvP, your first faction is the only one you can create there.
④ Set the same Preferred Online Language if language matters to you; changing it again takes 24 hours.
Class and race combinations are in our class and race table, and subscription and bundle costs are in our pricing guide.
What Blizzard has not announced yet
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Exact Hardcore date | Not announcedroadmap: winter |
| How and at what cost a dead Hardcore character transfers | Not announced |
| Paid character transfers or faction changes | Not announced |
| Open-world PvP rules on Roleplaying | Not announced |
| A combined RP-PvP ruleset | Not announced |
| How regions are grouped (e.g. Korea) | Not announced |
As of 2026-09-24 we could not find official answers to the points in the table below in Blizzard's news, forum blue posts or support articles.
A combined roleplaying and PvP ruleset is a frequent community request. We found no official reply on it.
When Blizzard publishes more, we will update the check date and the change log on this page. Our official facts page also collects the ruleset items in one place.