Can You Play WoW Forever on Steam Deck, Controller, Mac or Xbox?

You can play WoW: Forever on Windows or Mac, with keyboard and mouse or with a controller. Blizzard's starter guide (October 28, 2026) lists those platforms and calls controller support "a beta state", and the November 3 development notes say all major gameplay and core interface features now work on a gamepad. Steam Deck is not officially supported. Players run Forever on it through Proton, and owners on the official forums say it works well. No Xbox, PlayStation or Steam store version has been announced.

A Skyborne tower and houses in WoW Forever — Skyborne architecture on Zephras Isle. Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Official vs community-tested: platform status

Platform	Status	Source
Windows PC	Official	Blizzard starter guide
Mac	Official	Blizzard starter guide
Controller on PC/Mac	Official, labelled beta	Blizzard starter guide, dev notes Nov 3
Steam Deck / SteamOS	Community-tested via Proton, not supported by Blizzard	SteamDeckHQ, player reports
Xbox, PS5	Not announced	GamesRadar interview, Blizzard pages
Steam store	Not announced; install is through Battle.net	Blizzard starter guide

Controller support: what is official

Blizzard first promised "official gamepad support for players who prefer to play with a controller" in its September 12 What's Next panel recap. By launch it still carried a beta label: the starter guide says controller support "is also available in a beta state", and the November 3 "What's New" article says "more improvements to come".

The beta development notes show how much was built. On November 3, Blizzard wrote that gamepad support "has entered a functional Beta state" and that "all major gameplay and core user interface experiences can be played with a controller, including movement, spells, interactions, UI navigation". Gamepad settings live in Edit Mode and the Options menu, and the old options section was called Gamepad (Alpha). Earlier builds added a compact action bar (October 8 moved its settings into Edit Mode), gamepad support for trading, guilds, transmog and the chat channel menu (October 16), and better compatibility with add-ons (November 3).

Some gamepad bugs are still open. Kaivax's Known Issues post (updated November 5) lists two. Deleting more than one rare or epic item at a time can cause an error, and push-to-talk keyboard instructions can appear when you join voice chat. Addons can also get in the way. On November 5, a Questie user asked on the project's GitHub how to reach Questie's quest item buttons with a controller.

Steam Deck: community-tested, not official

Battle.net has no native Linux version, so Steam Deck players run the Windows Battle.net installer through Proton. SteamDeckHQ's guide (November 4) adds the installer to Steam as a non-Steam game, sets Proton Experimental, installs the launcher and downloads Forever from inside it. It then turns on gamepad support from the game's options. Treat this as a community method. Blizzard's published platforms are Windows and Mac only.

Player reports on the official forums are positive. In September a beta tester wrote that Forever "works really well on steam deck" and that the gamepad UI "works brilliantly" once you get used to it. Another player said they ran graphics settings 3–4 on the Deck and that the game "plays smoothly". On November 8 a player said gamepad mode with Steam Deck controls "works well" but called installation "a pain". The same threads mention problems: typing in chat is awkward, and the on-screen keyboard did not always appear. Some players use a small Bluetooth keyboard or a speech-to-text Decky plugin. Players also report running Forever on the Lenovo Legion Go and AYN Thor handhelds.

Mac requirements

Mac is official. The requirements on Blizzard's shop page, as republished by Gfinity on November 4, are below. Apple M1 is not on the list, and we found no Blizzard statement about whether it runs. Our system requirements page has the full Windows table and the GPU cutoff.

Mac	Minimum	Recommended
OS	macOS 12	macOS 15
Chip	Apple M2 or 9th-gen Intel Core	Apple M4
Memory	8 GB	16 GB
Storage	SSD, 128 GB	SSD, 128 GB

On Windows, Blizzard's GPU note (September 17) sets a hard floor. Your card must be AMD Graphics Core Next 1, NVIDIA Maxwell, Intel Skylake or newer, because the game needs "RGBA16F UAV support in compute shaders". Cards such as the GeForce GTX 760/770/780 are not supported.

Xbox, PS5 and Steam

No console version is announced. In a GamesRadar interview, executive producer Holly Longdale said Blizzard wants people to play "wherever you want, and at some point on whatever you want". FRVR's write-up (October 28) quotes her calling gamepad support "the first leg of that journey" and mentioning players running the game on the ROG Ally X. That is a stated goal, not a release plan.

The Steam store does not sell Forever. The starter guide tells you to download the Battle.net desktop app, sign in and install from there. Forever comes with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time. Prices for the editions are on our WoW Forever price page.

Frequently asked questions