World of Warcraft Retail Activity Holds Steady After Forever Beta Opens

Available weekly activity figures do not show a clear retail exodus after the World of Warcraft: Forever beta opened. Mythic+ runs fell 23.99% in week 5, but that change followed a dungeon event week and a Timewalking week, while raid participation continued along its existing pattern around the beta launch.

World of Warcraft: Forever opened its beta on September 17 and is scheduled to launch on November 4, as outlined in the Forever beta schedule. Weekly figures from Raider.IO show that the timing of week 5 created several reasons for Mythic+ activity to fall before the beta could be treated as the main explanation.

Week 5 had more than one reason for lower Mythic+ activity

The global decline was spread across every tracked region. US runs fell 29.55%, followed by a 26.51% decrease in EU, 23.53% in Korea, 21.17% in Taiwan, and 19.49% in China. The overall result was a little worse than the average week 5 decline in earlier seasons, but the pattern was similar to Midnight Season 2, which also had a dungeon event during week 4.

Week 4 encouraged players to complete four dungeon runs for its event quest. Week 5 then offered Timewalking rewards, including a Firelands Ragnaros kill and up to five dungeon runs with Champion and Hero track items. Those activities gave players other ways to spend their time and help explain why the opening figures were lower.

Synchronized snapshots showed an early fall in EU and China after the weekly reset, followed by a small upward trend across the main regions. The Forever beta opened 51 hours after the US reset, but the data did not show a sudden break at that point.

Later hourly figures also stayed close to their previous levels. At the time of the comparison, US activity was down 0.46%, EU activity was up 0.10%, and China was up 5.36%. New characters from the previous week’s Timewalking event were beginning to enter Mythic+, and no additional PvE gearing event was pulling attention away from regular runs.

Raid boss kills kept their existing pattern

Raid participation provides a useful second check because normal and heroic activity cover a broader portion of the endgame. Normal boss kills generally declined after the early weeks, while heroic kills continued to grow for most encounters through week 5. Combining both difficulties produced only a small decrease between weeks 4 and 5, without a new break in the recent trend.

Mythic+ success rates did fall by 0.88 percentage points to 90.21%, which was tied mainly to the new affix rotation rather than the beta. Murder Row had the highest success rate at 92.91%, followed by Kings’ Rest at 92.33%, Temple of Sethraliss at 91.55%, and Voidscar Arena at 91.00%. Ruby Life Pools was lowest at 87.52%, with Blinding Vale at 87.99% and Altar of Fangs at 88.28%.

Higher keys took a larger share of the remaining runs

At least 85.25% of all completed keys were level 10 or higher in week 5, slightly ahead of the 84.96% recorded during the same week of Midnight Season 1. The distribution within that group changed, with +10 keys accounting for 28.54% compared with 35.99% in Season 1, while +12 keys rose to 21.23% from 15.39%.

Total runs fell through key level 16. The largest decrease came at +2, which was down 52.03%, while +10 runs fell 35.92%. Higher-level activity held up better, and the weekly ceiling remained at +22, with 69 such keys compared with just six in week 4. The first +23 key also appeared during week 6.

Overall, the figures point to a retail audience adjusting to the weekly event rotation and affix change rather than abandoning the game for Forever. The beta may draw attention as it progresses, but its opening did not create a visible collapse in Mythic+ or raid participation.

Do you expect retail activity to change as World of Warcraft: Forever moves closer to its November launch, or do these numbers suggest the two versions can keep separate audiences? Share your view, then follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, Telegram.

Source: Icy Veins