The Riverglades got a closer look during the World of Warcraft: Forever Found Photographs panel at BlizzCon 2026, where Evan, lead content designer on the World of Warcraft Classic team, called it “an expansive new zone roughly the size of Stranglethorn Vale” with a level range in the mid-30s to mid-40s. It was built in an area that existed in the original world but could not be reached. Players who know the Redridge Mountains will find a new fork on the road to the Burning Steppes that leads into the zone.
The Riverglades holds nearly 200 new quests with stories for Horde and Alliance players. Gnoll camps continue the story of the neighboring zones, and an ogre clan has set up in one of the new points of interest. Evan named the Powderfuse goblins, who run Powderfuse Port, and said the Twilight’s Hammer is felt across the zone in places like Sunnyglade, “a callback to Warcraft’s history.”
Horde players start out from Rogmar and Alliance players from Farhold Keep, where they meet the Brotherhood of the Horse, a faction Evan said dates back to early Warcraft. He called the zone “a love letter” to players and to the people who built the world more than 20 years ago.
Later in the panel, Evan said the zone fills a piece of land on the eastern shore of the Eastern Kingdoms that was on the map but never developed, and that the team weighed several biomes before settling on a single zone of about 30 chunks. He described it as an alternative for players leveling through Stranglethorn Vale, and Josh Greenfield said the team ran its story ideas past Chris Metzen early on, whittled down from 10 or 12 to a handful.
These place and faction names were spoken on stage and did not appear on the slides. The slides showed an ogre camp behind stone walls, a moonlit road, and a walled town behind a wooden palisade.