WoW Forever's team already rebuilt Molten Core once, so here is what "revamped" could mean
Heat levels, an 11th boss and a 20-player raid. We have been here before.
Well, this certainly did not take long. As the team looked back on the beta, one specific sentence in the latest WoW Forever podcast was enough to get us wondering about Molten Core.
In the End of Beta Special, which is the latest episode of the official WoW Forever podcast, host CountdowntoClassic asked the team if Molten Core would get new mechanics. Senior Game Designer Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield replied and said that it is pretty safe to assume you will not just stand there and tank and spank Golemagg. Associate Production Director Clay Stone then reminded everyone that Blizzard already used the word "revamped" back at BlizzCon. Fair enough.
It is important to note, though, that Blizzard has not officially named Molten Core as the revamped iconic raid on its roadmap, and the team also said it does not have much to share yet. Nevertheless, we still have a pretty good idea of what a Molten Core revamp from this team could look like, because they have done it before.
We Have Seen This Team Remake Molten Core Before
The team behind World of Warcraft: Forever mostly consists of the same people behind Season of Discovery. Clay Stone even brought up SoD (Season of Discovery) in the same episode and described it as a place where the team could experiment fast with the safety net of a season. This is to say that, since Season of Discovery was mostly temporary, they could experiment with things they might or might not want to keep in-game, as there was no fear of permanence.
When Molten Core arrived in SoD Phase 4 in July 2024, it looked like this:
20 players instead of 40. You could still bring up to 40, but the raid itself was tuned for 20.
Three Heat levels: Sweltering, Blistering, and Molten. You picked one from a Hydraxian Waterlords NPC at the entrance and could swap at any time.
Higher Heat meant extra drops, as well as a few extra items and unique weapon cosmetics on Molten. The harder levels also required a lot of fire resistance (+96 on Blistering, +226 on Molten).
An 11th bonus boss, only on Molten Heat and only after clearing everything else.
Revamped loot and redesigned Tier 1 sets.
Blizzard even called the Heat system an experiment back then, with lessons it hoped to carry into future Classic raids.
Naturally, none of this is confirmed for WoW Forever. It is still the most recent example of what this team does once it gets its hands on Ragnaros, though.
Will Molten Core Stay 40 Players?
This is the part we are most curious about, to be honest. Because in the same podcast, Lead Encounter Designer Mike said the team wants to keep delivering 10- and 20-player content in every patch, so raid groups do not have to reshuffle every time something new comes out. Onyxia's Lair will remain a 40-player raid, though. Mike called it the throwback raid where everybody comes out of the woodwork to kill the dragon together.
Back in Season of Discovery, Blizzard said Molten Core was easier to scale from 40 down to 20 than other raids. So does WoW Forever's Molten Core stay a 40-player nostalgia raid like Onyxia, or become a 20-player raid? Nobody has said or explained that yet, but regardless of what happens to Molten Core in the end, it would fit everything the team has told us so far.
Golemagg Has Some Time to Prepare
You will not be meeting him soon. The whole story of World of Warcraft: Forever is set before Molten Core, and the roadmap puts the revamped iconic raid in the Summer 2027 update, with a completely new raid and two new dungeons coming as well. Before that, however, Barrow Deeps (10 players), Hyjal Summit (20 players), and Onyxia's Lair (40 players) open on December 9, and the Spring update adds two more new raids too.
Whatever "revamped" ends up meaning for WoW Forever, we would hang on to any fire resistance gear you find after launch on November 4. Just in case...
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