Following our first look at World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026 this past weekend, Blizzard’s answer to everyone’s Classic+ prayers, a lot of controversy surrounding the new Skyborne race has made the rounds online.
From the $30 price tag to the ill-fitting lore, fans have shared quite a few concerns about the Skybrone. So, what prompted Blizzard to implement the pretty blue elves in the first place?
Well, according to senior game designer Josh Greenfield, it all boils down to Chris Metzen – you know, one of the fathers of Warcraft in its entirety, basically. He explains as much in a new interview with GameSpot, saying it “started with a lot of questions.”
Greenfield goes on: “We were talking about WoW Forever early on and we knew we wanted to add some sort of elves. Everyone on the team is a big fan of elves. We all love elves. They’re very popular… and we knew we wanted to do something and came to him with a bunch of ideas and pitches and different variants of elves…”
Metzen’s response? He “was really like, ‘Yeah, we should do something; we should get a little crazy with it.'”
And, the rest is history. Blizzard “agreed and we had a lot of fun kind of concepting it with him.” So, there you have it – a Warcraft legend himself approves of the Skyborne… but, it’s not enough for many of the naysayers.
Over on Reddit, plenty of folks discussing Metzen’s role in the new race’s creation still believe it to be ill-fitting in World of Warcraft: Forever. As one comment reads, “They still look very out of place, they don’t feel right…”
I wonder myself whether Blizzard will respond to all of the backlash the race has seen thus far – but I suppose only time will tell. As of now, access to the Skyborne is purchasable and will release with World of Warcraft: Forever in November.