Developer Blizzard's new version of its flagship MMORPG, World of Warcraft: Forever, will receive content updates "every four months," avoiding modern WoW's somewhat controversial eight-week patch cycle.

In an interview with IGN, Forever principal game designer Kris Zierhut revealed the content schedule plan and explained Blizzard's reasoning. He said WoW Classic's Season of Discovery received updates "way too fast," every 8-10 weeks.

Since the launch of WoW's Dragonflight expansion in 2022, an eight-week update schedule is also what modern WoW operates on. Its more frequent patch schedule means there's always something new to do, but has been criticized by some players due to the buggy nature of recent updates and lackluster content.

On the other hand, some older expansions, like Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands, saw content droughts that lasted six months or more, leaving players hungry for something new to do. Forever will split the difference. 

"We're fairly convinced the correct [update] rate is something closer to once every four months or 17 weeks or three times a year," Zierhut said. 

Just because major updates will be coming every four or so months doesn't mean there won't be anything new to do between patches. Zierhut said some content will unlock partway through those four-month patch cycles.

"It's not just patch day comes [around], here's a content fire hose, and now we're silent for four months," he said.

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