WoW Forever graphics: volumetric fog, real sun shadows and flowing water for original Azeroth

World of Warcraft: Forever is not a remaster that repaints Azeroth in the modern retail style. At BlizzCon, Lead Environment Artist Matt Heyman and Lead Software Engineer Jason Scott used the Evolving a Timeless World panel to explain the goal instead: “Azeroth as you remember it”, the old world combined with the brighter version that lives in players’ memories. Wowhead has now rounded up the changes shown on stage.

Authentic first

The team’s rule is that everything they add or change must feel authentic to the original world and art style. New assets are made in the vanilla style on purpose, not in the look of later expansions. Their example: giving Durotar a blue or green haze might look exciting, but Durotar should stay orange, hot and sweltering. New zones are meant to feel as if they had always been there.

Fog: from hiding the horizon to setting the mood

In vanilla, fog set the atmosphere but also hid how short the draw distance was. Forever switches to volumetric fog, which can move with the wind and produces god rays (sun shafts). Draw distance is much longer now: from the Wetlands you can see Dun Morogh, and looking toward Alterac shows the towers of Dalaran.

Lighting that follows the sun

The old client did not let mountains block the sun or cast shadows, and many models ignored the sun’s position. In Forever:

• mountains and models cast shadows onto the terrain as the sun moves;
• tree shadows in places like Mulgore follow the time of day instead of being static;
• baked-in ambient light is replaced by global illumination.

Blizzard built a custom ray tracer for this, and says it runs not only on the recommended hardware but also on the minimum requirements.

Water that actually flows

Original WoW water moved in one direction but stayed flat. A brand-new water shader adds waves, wind and flow, so rivers bend around rocks and foam where they hit things. Artists can tune depth, how far light reaches and clarity, from crystal clear to murky. Water also reflects the world now, including the sun and the moon at dusk.

How a zone gets updated

The team compares every zone against an original 1.12 client. For Darkshire they lowered the ambient light, added local lights and global illumination, then layered base fog and moving ground fog. When that looked too spooky compared to the original, they toned it back down.

What it means for players

If you loved the old look, Forever aims to keep it while fixing what the 2004 engine could not do. And since HD and original-style SD character models are both planned, you can keep a classic feel for characters too. You can test it yourself in the beta, which opened on September 17, ahead of the November 4 launch. The official panel is on YouTube.

While you wait, plan your first character with our leveling guides and talent builds.