Classic Graphics and UI Settings in Forever

For a lot of players who came back to WoW Forever for Classic, the first look feels like the wrong game. Most of it can be walked back. Some switches sit in the game's own menus, one of them shows up exactly once, and the gaps Blizzard left fall to a fast-moving addon scene.

The catch is scope. A choice made on the very first login shapes more than it seems to, the model toggle quietly leaves a few things untouched, and several interface addons share nearly the same name. Each layer comes up below in the order you meet it in the game, down to the settings that have no Classic option at all.

WoW Forever Classic Look: Quick Setup

A Classic look in Forever is assembled from separate pieces, and only some of them sit in the base game. The table maps each piece to the place you change it:

Only the first row is time-sensitive. Pick Classic on the first screen, because that screen does not come back; everything else in the table can be changed at any point.

WoW Forever Classic Mode vs Enhanced

One choice comes first: Classic or Enhanced. The game describes Classic as a more traditional presentation with simpler visuals, standard character models and fewer modern interface features, built for a cleaner, more original-style experience with less automatic guidance. Enhanced is the updated presentation with higher visual fidelity and more interface features on by default.

These are starting settings and nothing more: the selection screen itself says you can customize them later. Blizzard's developers confirmed that picking Classic switches off quest tracking and hides other players' transmog the moment you enter the world.

What does not come back is the selector itself.

Players who go with Enhanced and change their minds find no menu that reopens it. The move to Classic then happens one setting at a time.

How to Change Classic Mode Settings Later

Each of the six starting settings has its own home in the game:

• Character models: Game Menu → Options → System → Graphics → Character Models. The next section covers what the switch does and what it skips.
• Quest points of interest and objective blobs: Quest Objectives in the world map's filter menu, opened from the button in the map's top-right corner.
• One-bag: Options → Controls → Combine Bags. With it off, B opens a single bag and Shift+B opens them all, while the combined bag window converts back to separate bags from its own menu with a left-click.
• Transmog: speak to a transmogrifier in certain cities and disable the system. With it off, other players' transmogs disappear for you and yours disappears for them. Appearances from new gear keep collecting, you can still hide your own helm and cloak, and other players' hidden helms and cloaks stay hidden for you.
• Keyboard binds: Options → Keybindings → Movement Keys. A and D on Turn Left and Turn Right is the turning setup Classic starts you on; Strafe Left and Strafe Right on the same keys is Enhanced.
• Screen UI layout: Game Menu → Edit Mode → Layout, where Classic (Preset) and Modern (Preset) match the two cards. The interface section below covers what each one moves.

WoW Forever SD Models (Classic Character Models)

Character models have their own switch, and it works game-wide: your character, NPCs and other players all render in SD, or all of them in HD. The choice only changes your screen. Someone playing with HD models still sees your character in HD.

You can flip it in three places. In character creation, a High-Definition Models checkbox sits at the bottom of the customization options, bottom right just above Finish, so you can compare both versions of the same face before you commit. With SD on, the creation screen also switches to matching icons. The barbershop carries the same checkbox. In the world, open Game Menu → Options → System → Graphics → Character Models, pick Standard Definition and accept the UI reload. All three change one setting that applies across your account, so it follows every character you log in with.

SD Models vs Original Classic Models

SD in Forever is not the old Classic client pasted in. Players spotted early that SD characters stand on the modern skeleton, and Blizzard's developers confirmed it: SD and HD models share one skeleton. What the team reworked instead are the main animation sets on both, so running, walking, swimming, attacks, spellcasting and interacting all carry a Classic feel. Cue the "no bouncy dwarves" line. At BlizzCon an HD dwarf ran on the restored Classic animation set.

For what it's worth, the result is close to Classic without being the same models, and Blizzard asked for player feedback on exactly this point.

SD and HD Character Customization

Both versions share one set of choices: face, hair and the rest carry over from SD to HD. HD adds extras on top — eye color and eyebrows on some races. Faces are the catch. A face tuned in SD can turn into a stranger in HD, and human characters draw the loudest complaints while most other races transition fine. If you plan to play in SD, build the character in SD, then tick the checkbox to see what players on HD models will see, and untick it before Finish, since it is the same account-wide switch.

What the SD Toggle Does Not Change

Thing is, the switch covers the classic races and their world, and a few things sit outside it:

• Skyborne: the new race has no SD model yet, so the toggle changes nothing on them. SD Skyborne characters, SD druid forms included, are in development for early 2027.
• Skyborne druid forms: they keep their high-detail look next to the SD forms of night elf druids. Blizzard's rework of those HD forms removes some of their softness, adds more detailed fur and adjusts their color saturation, so they sit closer to the other creatures in the world.
• Druid forms from the barber: the newer HD druid forms are picked at a barbershop, such as the ones in Orgrimmar, Stormwind City, Darnassus and Thunder Bluff, and only with HD models on; with SD models on, the barber hides the elf customization options and the Accept button.
• The world: SD changes how character models look and nothing else. Lighting, fog and water follow the graphics settings.

WoW Forever Skyborne Race

WoW Forever Classic UI: Edit Mode Classic Preset

There is no Classic UI toggle in WoW Forever.

Blizzard's own list of Forever's visual options names opt-in transmog, modern and Classic visual presets, HD and SD character models, restored Classic animations for HD models and gamepad support. An interface switch is not on it, and the game ships the retail interface features to everyone, from the unit frames and cast bars to the spellbook and character window.

Edit Mode is the closest built-in option, and a Classic pick on the first screen already starts you on its Classic layout. In Edit Mode → Layout, Modern (Preset) sets the player and target frames side by side at the bottom center, while Classic (Preset) moves them to the upper left and keeps the action bars along the bottom, the way the original HUD sat — the art itself stays modern, so frames and bars keep their current style.

Two control settings restore Classic behavior without any addon. Sticky Targeting in Options → Controls is on by default — turn it off and clicking empty ground drops your target the way it always did in Classic. Combine Bags off returns separate bags. Quest text has a checkbox of its own in Options → Interface: Instant Quest Text shows it all at once, and with the box unchecked it fades in instead.

Best Classic UI Addons for WoW Forever

Forever runs the modern addon API, the same approach retail uses, so interface addons for it are built on the same frames as retail ones. Install the file marked for WoW Forever. Several projects carry almost the same name, and search results mix Forever files with retail ones.

ClassicUI Forever

ClassicUI Forever by justawower puts the original Classic art on top of Forever's interface and works with the game's own Edit Mode instead of fighting it. Download the one made by justawower, because copies with near-identical names circulate on CurseForge. What it brings back:

• The main bar with its gryphons and stone band, the micro menu and bags in their old sockets, and the old square buttons.
• Shaded XP and reputation bars, the key ring and Classic-sized bag slots.
• Player, target, focus, target of target, pet and party frames with the old art, elite dragons and class colors.
• Cast bars, combo points, swing timers, the breath and fatigue bars and the old damage numbers over the mob you hit.
• The 1.x nameplates.
• The game's damage meter in the old look.
• The 1.x spellbook, quest log and character sheet, with the old reputation, skills, PvP, currency and stats tabs.
• The classic talent window, which can show all three trees side by side, and a classic window for Forever's Legacy system.
• The classic professions book, the 1.x trade skill window and the classic trainer.
• The social window with the old friends list, Who list, guild roster and raid tabs, plus a group finder dressed to match.
• Classic bags or one bag for everything, and the classic world map with its quest list.
• Merchant, mail, quest, gossip, trade, bank and loot windows in the old metal border, with the old loot roll frames.
• The game menu and settings as the old dialogs.
• The round minimap with its old tracking, mail, zoom, calendar and clock spots, and the old chat look.

Every piece is its own toggle. Flip them in the addon's options window or in the game's Settings; turn one off and the modern version comes back in place, so you can keep the new character sheet, say, while the rest of the UI goes Classic. Windows unlock from the lock in their title bar, drag anywhere and resize from a corner grip, and Dark and Bronze themes recolor the classic art. On first login the addon offers an optional classic Edit Mode layout that puts the bars where 1.x kept them, and your current layout and keybinds are left alone.

EllesmereUI Classic Theme

EllesmereUI, a full interface suite that already runs on Forever, lets one profile wear several styles, and Classic WoW UI is the vanilla one. It redraws the nameplates, unit frames, party-style raid frames, damage meters and the character panel in the old art while keeping the suite's own features, and switching keeps the layout and settings where they were. On the Forever client the picker adds a WoW Forever card as well; it dresses the suite in Forever's own bronze frames, gryphons and round badges, so pick Classic WoW UI for the vanilla art. Picking a style reloads the UI once; after that each module can be switched on its own. Full-suite players, this one is yours.

WoW Forever Graphics Settings for a Classic Look

Lighting has no Classic switch. The starting preset covers models, quest markers, bags, transmog, keybinds and the screen layout, and SD models leave lighting, fog and water alone, so what the menus let you adjust is the bloom, the shadows and a handful of the new rendering options.

Forever also brings heavier weather, and the menu has no weather setting of its own.

How to Reduce Fog in WoW Forever

There is no off switch. A September 24, 2026 update removed the setting that could disable fog, and /console volumeFog 0 does nothing. Compute Effects in Graphics sets the fog's quality, but by its own description even Disabled keeps a low-resolution volume fog, so the menu thins the fog out without ever clearing it.

What does help is Shadow Quality. At Low the fog glows, Fair already tones it down, and Good is where the game starts drawing environment shadows, the ones that keep light from flooding the fog.

The fog is doing a job, too. Classic leaned on plain distance fog, Forever draws much further, and the new fog is what keeps Azeroth feeling big — without it the far side of a zone would sit in plain view.

Bloom, Secondary Lighting and Water Settings

• Bloom Intensity: in Graphics, with only Low and High. Low is the one for players who find the new glow too strong.
• Secondary Lighting: a new setting that drives the new lighting, set to Fair, Good, High or Ultra.
• Liquid detail: Legacy Liquid Detail covers the old-style water only, while the new water runs on PBR Liquid Detail.
• Environment Detail and Ground Clutter: one player keeps both at 8, because the flat Classic grass looks bad on its own in Forever.
• Brightness, contrast and gamma: if the game looks too dark, one player lowered brightness to 46 and raised gamma to 1.4; for washed-out daylight, another went to brightness 45 and contrast 60.

WoW Forever Classic Look FAQ