Race to 60 WoW Forever: 21 Entrants, No Ranking Yet

On November 4, thousands of players will create a character at the same moment, and a few of them will do it with a camera on and a timer running. The Race to 60 WoW Forever is the race to level 60 on the new version of the game, with a public leaderboard that tracks the runners live. I opened its pages this Monday, October 5, 30 days before the start: here is what it really contains, and what it does not contain yet.

Race to 60 WoW Forever: A Leaderboard That Opens at the Start

The race.aotc.gg page belongs to AOTC, a tracking site that already covers the other versions of WoW (Classic Era, Anniversary, Season of Discovery, Hardcore, and Forever in normal or Hardcore mode). It names nobody behind the project, and states that it is not affiliated with Blizzard. The countdown shown on October 5 announced a leaderboard available in 30 days, 8 hours and 25 minutes. By my math, that lands on November 4 at 3 p.m. PST, which is 11 p.m. UTC.

There are three ways to take part, and the site spells them out. You can simply play: you show up on the leaderboard on your own, with nothing to install, but your experience is not tracked. You can log in with Battle.net and install an addon: your XP progress is displayed and the streamer tools unlock, but updates stay delayed. Or you add the Companion app, which sends your progress every few seconds for a real-time ranking. The Companion exists for Windows and macOS, and reads the game screen without touching memory.

The leaderboard sorts by level first, then by experience within the level. It shows up to 100 runners, only on Forever characters on a normal server. A Hardcore race is announced for later, with no date.

The Rules and the Prizes

A second site, raceto60.com, publishes the Race to 60 WoW Forever rulebook and the prize list. It presents itself as a community event under Blizzard’s Community Competition License. I found no displayed link between this site and AOTC, and its organizer is not named either: only a contact address and an X account are given. I suggest you read both pages without mixing them up.

The raceto60.com rules set up three boards. First to 60 is played against the clock, starting when the servers open, with an overall winner and one per class. Fastest to 60 is judged on the character’s played time, and stays open all season. Beta Sprint measures played time between levels 1 and 20 during the beta. One account, one entry, one character. Cheats that Blizzard bans, such as bots, exploits, gold or bought levels, lead to disqualification. Results stay provisional for 48 hours, and the leaders of each board must provide a stream recording or a screenshot of the played time.

On the prize side, the site lists twelve titles: the Crown of the First for the overall winner, nine class crowns, the Hourglass of the Swift for the fewest hours played, and a Sprinter’s Medal reserved for the beta. Each prize is listed as « from the prize pool », with no amount. Sponsors are still being sought, and the page promises neither a raffle nor a lottery.

Who Has Signed Up, and Who Has Not

On October 5, race.aotc.gg showed 21 registered runners and ten streamers who will broadcast their run: gingitv (Twitch partner badge, 403.7k followers), alenyaclassic, bornlesszero, bellucci__, oz_ski, makkybis, kamiyamai, warpwalk, avalanche_w and hexecutorxd. Their audiences range from 11 followers to 403.7k: a single big name, and a majority of small channels.

The key point: no real leaderboard exists yet. The preview button shows demo rows, and the site’s FAQ admits the names there are misspelled on purpose. So I will not name any favorite. Nothing on these pages says who is a speedrun record holder or who will play which class, and I will not guess on their behalf.

How Long Does It Take to Reach 60

Nobody knows, and that is the charm of the exercise: the beta has been capped at level 30 since the October 1 patch. The precedents come from Hardcore, and the past races page of race.aotc.gg keeps a record of them. On August 28, 2023, Vitochie reached 60 in 70 hours of play, on a Frost mage. In November 2024, Zeroji took 3 days, 22 hours and 34 minutes of played time on the Hardcore Anniversary realms, according to Wowhead (about 94.5 hours).

Both figures come from permadeath races, so from players who play carefully. At the other end, a boosting site, LFCarry, estimates a relaxed climb following the quests at about 150 hours, while admitting that nobody has measured 1 to 60 on Forever. My estimate, which is not a measurement: a first 60 between three and five days after launch, so around November 8 to 10, with runners who sleep little. The maximum level stays locked at 60 from launch, which makes that moment the real finish line.

RestedXP: No 35 to 60 Routes on Launch Day

RestedXP sells a leveling guide whose authors are, according to the publisher, record-holding speedrunners. On paper, that is the runners’ gear. In practice, the official roadmap (screenshot below) says otherwise: the Forever Speedrun Guide is listed as in progress, and the Forever routes for levels 35 to 60 will come out after launch. In the meantime, the guides for the older Classic Era version cover those levels.

Direct consequence for the race: a runner who wanted to rely on RestedXP on November 4 will have no paid Forever-specific route between levels 35 and 60, which is the part of the climb that costs the most hours. Nothing lets me say which registered runners use this guide, or whether they will go without it. On launch day of the Race to 60 WoW Forever, leveling will therefore come down mostly to personal preparation, the routes runners have planned themselves and decision speed.

If you will not be racing, the question is different. If you level a character at a relaxed pace, levels 1 to 20 are free in the addon. The full guide costs $30 per faction, and the shop page with our link applies a 10% discount. It will be of no use if you plan to explore every quest at your own pace, and it arrives incomplete at launch: I covered all of this in my article on the RestedXP Forever guide. Prepare your talent tree with the calculator instead, it is free.

How to Follow the Race

• The live Race to 60 WoW Forever leaderboard and the list of streamers: race.aotc.gg, with its Discord.
• The rulebook, the prizes and the First to 60, Fastest to 60 and Beta Sprint boards: raceto60.com, with its X account.
• The streams: each leaderboard row shows a LIVE badge and a link to the runner’s Twitch channel, if the runner has linked their account.
• The start: November 4 at 3 p.m. PST (11 p.m. UTC). The leaderboards open with the servers.