Mount Hyjal in WoW Forever

After Archimonde

Everyone knows how the Battle for Mount Hyjal ended. Forever is interested in the morning after: how the mountain recovered, how the forests are healing from the corruption, how the wild gods were affected by what happened at the summit, and what dangers are still up there.

Blizzard’s Found Photos panel frames the zone as the clearest example of finally opening a place that has held meaning since Warcraft’s earliest stories — one where players meet emerging factions, form alliances and start pulling on threads that lead somewhere later. Malfurion gave up his immortality to beat Archimonde, and the panel was blunt that not everyone agreed with that decision.

One piece of set dressing has already been described: Wowhead’s open-world roundup says Archimonde’s skeleton still lies beside Nordrassil, where he fell.

How you get into Mount Hyjal

Blizzard has not shown the entrance on a map. What the beta client (build 1.60.1.69893) shows is the shape of it: a line that reads “Pass through the druidic wards to enter Mount Hyjal”, which fits a zone the night elves have kept closed rather than one you simply walk into.

Inside the zone, Darkwhisper Gorge — the gorge Classic players could see but never travel through — is finally open.

What is in Mount Hyjal

No new five-player dungeon has been announced inside Mount Hyjal. Bosses, tier sets and the legendary reward are in the WoW Forever raids guide.

What you go there for

Blizzard’s list for the zone is new stories, new reputations, new rewards and both solo and group content, as players help shape the future of a recovering land. Since it sits at the end of the leveling journey rather than inside a level bracket, it is also where the raids pick up.

• Gear that only works here. The beta client has trinket-style effects that add hit, crit, haste or expertise “while in Mount Hyjal, Hyjal Summit, and the Barrow Deeps” — rewards from the mountain, built for the mountain.
• A local Well Fed. Another client effect raises movement speed in Hyjal after eating, one of the terrain-specific effects the developers have described in interviews.
• A herb of its own. A glove enchant in the client gives a chance at a Death Lotus when gathering any herb in Hyjal.
• Nordrassil in the fight. One raid line reads that the Wild King draws on the power of Nordrassil — the World Tree is part of the encounters, not just the backdrop.

Those four lines are read from the beta client (build 1.60.1.69893), not announced. Beta text changes.