And then there is: “bigger than Blackrock Depths.”
During Episode 3 of the official WoW Forever Podcast, Senior Game Designer Rowan Ryder revealed new details about Blackmaw Hold, one of Forever’s previously announced high-level dungeons. The important clarification is that Blizzard is talking about its physical footprint rather than promising more bosses, quests or mandatory corridors than BRD. Even with that caveat, Ryder says Blackmaw Hold is probably physically larger than Blackrock Depths, with substantial verticality, a non-linear layout and plenty of secrets hidden throughout the instance.
That is a fairly aggressive standard to set.
Blackmaw Hold Is Hidden in Azshara
Blackmaw Hold sits in Azshara, using the area behind what was once an unused entrance associated with Timbermaw Hold. Instead of leaving another mysterious Vanilla doorway permanently sealed, Forever is finally putting something substantial behind it.
The dungeon is primarily occupied by corrupted furbolgs and demons, with Blizzard teasing plenty of secrets for players to discover. It is designed as high-level content and should feel comfortable at level 60, although players will apparently be able to enter somewhat earlier.
That makes Blackmaw Hold one of the late-game pieces in the much larger dungeon lineup we have been tracking in our complete WoW Forever changes guide. Forever is adding nine entirely new dungeons rather than merely rearranging bosses inside the old ones.
It Is Bigger Than BRD, but Blizzard Does Not Call It a Megadungeon
There is an important distinction here. Ryder specifically said the team did not set out to create a modern-style “megadungeon.” Blackmaw Hold simply became enormous during development.
The comparison with Blackrock Depths is therefore mostly about philosophy. BRD was not a clean sequence of boss rooms connected by corridors. It felt like an actual place: prison, city, bar, arena, industrial complex and royal seat all welded together underneath Blackrock Mountain. Players could take different routes, miss entire areas and return repeatedly before understanding how the whole thing connected.
That style seems to be exactly what Forever wants to recover. Our Forever beta review already found that Hall of Thanes and Ruins of Lordaeron were much closer to old-school dungeon design than modern Mythic+ corridors. Blackmaw Hold sounds like Blizzard taking the same philosophy and removing the size limit.
One Very Long Session Should Be Enough
There is one lesson Blizzard appears to have learned from BRD.
Blackrock Depths covered such a wide level range and contained so many different objectives that completing everything in one sensible visit was almost impossible. Blackmaw Hold is being designed around a tighter level band. Blizzard expects a group to be able to experience the complete dungeon in one long session, although Ryder cautioned that players may still not finish every quest during that run.
That sounds like a promising middle ground: something large enough to get lost in without requiring a three-part university course before you understand which doorway leads to the boss you actually need.
It also makes Blizzard’s recent decision to buff dungeon XP again look even more important. Forever wants players returning to these spaces instead of treating every dungeon as a one-time quest checklist.
And Blizzard Is Keeping It Out of the Beta
Blackmaw Hold is not part of the current level-30 beta, which means Blizzard is preserving some of its largest surprises for the finished game. We already know the company has gone unusually far to hide thousands of Forever items and later dungeon rewards from dataminers.
Now we know one of the places where some of those secrets are waiting.
Blackrock Depths became legendary because it felt less like an instance and more like somebody had accidentally put an entire underground civilization behind the portal.
If Blackmaw Hold genuinely captures that feeling while being physically even larger, Forever may have found the most Classic way possible to introduce a new dungeon:
make it enormous, put furbolgs inside, and let us get lost.
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