World of Warcraft: Forever is riding high thanks to its popular beta and upcoming launch, but retail WoW's Midnight expansion feels like it's in a state of crisis by comparison.
The two different versions of WoW couldn't be in more different places. Forever seems to be extremely popular, with Blizzard developers commenting how its beta is breaking records. Blizzard itself has also been more communicative regarding Forever than ever before, with weekly podcasts diving into community topics, forum posts addressing various issues, and frequent updates addressing balance problems and bugs.
Midnight seems to be in the opposite corner. Its latest content update, patch 12.1.5, went live October 13. In addition to new story quests that continue the expansion's main narrative, it added a new single-boss raid and a long-teased mega delve (officially called a labyrinth) that gives solo-focused players an almost raid-like experience.
Unfortunately, the patch was released in a bug-riddled state. The Kindo'jan labyrinth, arguably the patch's biggest feature, saw players running into issue after issue. Some players complained about not earning credit for boss kills and being unable to collect rewards. One particularly nasty bug had players falling through the floor of the labyrinth's final boss arena, making it so the labyrinth couldn't be completed. Other players cited issues with delve companion Valeera dying too quickly or failing to do proper boss mechanics.
Many of the most glaring bugs (like falling through the floor) were fixed in a hotfix deployed on October 16, but labyrinths still have a major issue: no save points. When Blizzard first detailed labyrinths, it implied players would be able to start one, make some progress, and come back to finish it at a later time. Blizzard's exact wording was that players would be able to "venture through them in a single epic session or tackle them piece by piece over time, progressing at your own pace."
That currently isn't true, as the labyrinth has no checkpoints and must be completed in a single session. Labyrinths taking at least an hour or so to complete, combined with various bugs preventing progress and no way to save and come back to them later, is making for an incredibly frustrating experience. It's unclear if the lack of checkpoints is a bug, an unannounced change on Blizzard's part, or just some kind of oversight, but it's not a great debut for Midnight's newest feature.
Story spoilers for WoW: Midnight patch 12.1.5 below.
Bugs and issues surrounding labyrinths are just one part of why patch 12.1.5 has proven unpopular. The patch is also catching flak for its story, specifically how it killed off a major character unceremoniously. Liadrin, a blood elf paladin and one of the main characters players have interacted with over the course of Midnight, dies facing off against Kithix, the resurrected Old God general that serves at the patch's new raid encounter.
However, she doesn't die in any kind of epic or heroic way. Instead, judging from the post-raid cinematic, she dies from what seems to be exhaustion, having wielded the power of the light too strongly in the battle against Kithix. After Kithix's defeat, Liadrin utters "Darkness will never prevail" before crumpling to the ground and dying.
WoW is not a stranger to having major characters die. It famously happened with Varyian Wrynn, the leader of the Alliance, during the start of the game's Legion expansion. But unlike Varyian's epic death, Liadrin's feels anticlimactic. The fact that it occurs during a .5 patch that feels disconnected to the game's larger narrative makes the story beat feel unnecessary.
Adding salt to the wound is that her death looks to be in service of a recurring and unpopular trend in recent WoW storylines where old rivalries and feuds between factions are easily reconciled. In Liadrin's case, her death brings together the blood elves and the Amani trolls, though Blizzard does make a point in a post-raid quest to emphasise the two groups are not allies despite now being at peace. Blizzard may have said its putting the "war" back in Warcraft during BlizzCon 2026, but all of its recent story beats have seen ancient enemies coming together and cooperating, and Liadrin's death only serves to reinforce that.
This isn't the first time a .5 patch has been met with negative reception from WoW's players. It was only back in April that Blizzard released patch 12.0.5 in an extremely buggy state. Player outcry saw Blizzard go as far to issue a public apology, stating it was "taking lessons learned from this launch to help ensure this doesn't happen again," and that "we will do better." Flash forward six months later, and it doesn't seem like much has changed.
That puts Midnight in a weird place overall. Blizzard barely talked about modern WoW at this year's BlizzCon. It teased Midnight's final content patch that will see players finally confront Xal'atath once and for all, but didn't share more details about what to expect from the game's next expansion, The Last Titan, despite it being slated to release next year.
Instead, Blizzard put almost all its emphasis on WoW: Forever, a new, WoW Classic-inspired version of Blizzard's MMORPG that adds new content and visual upgrades to the old-school version of Azeroth. In an interview with GameSpot, Blizzard shared more details on what to expect from WoW: Forever's future and its endgame. WoW: Forever launches November 4.