Blizzard is making Standard Definition (SD) models for WoW: Forever's Skyborne, Druid forms included, and they're due in early 2027. It is also reworking the race's High Definition (HD) Druid forms so they clash less with the world's other creatures, and it shared images of both.
An early work-in-progress image of the SD Skyborne. Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Why the Skyborne are getting SD models
WoW: Forever lets you choose SD or HD models for player characters. Blizzard focused that choice on the races from the original game, since so many players are attached to those models. The Skyborne, a race new to Forever, only got HD models, and players told Blizzard they can look jarring next to SD characters in an SD world. Blizzard agrees, so SD Skyborne characters, with SD Druid forms, are now in development.
If you plan to play a Skyborne, your character will only have its HD look until the SD models arrive. Blizzard hasn't given a date or patch beyond early 2027 and plans to share more closer to then.
Players on Blizzard's forums are split on the race, with threads ranging from "Pushback the release of Skyborne Elves"us.forums.blizzard.com to "I love the Skyborne!"us.forums.blizzard.com.
The HD Druid forms get a rework
Blizzard says some visual ideas it explored for Forever didn't quite fit the consistent, original-era look it is aiming for, so it plans to update some of them. The only example it has named is the HD Skyborne Druid forms, the animal shapes a Skyborne Druid turns into, such as Cat Formwowseer.gg.
The team removed some of the forms' softness, added more detailed fur textures and adjusted the color saturation. The Skyborne come from an exotic place, and Blizzard wants their Druid forms to keep that feel without clashing with the look of other creatures in the world. It didn't say when the reworked forms reach the game.
The revisited HD Skyborne Druid forms. Images: Blizzard Entertainment
Sources
- Blizzard: World of Warcraft: Forever: The Future of Skyborne Visual UpdatesBlizzardworldofwarcraft.blizzard.com
- Blizzard forums (player threads): Pushback the release of Skyborne Elvesus.forums.blizzard.com, I love the Skyborne!us.forums.blizzard.com
