Two days before WoW: Forever opens its gates on November 5, Blizzard confirmed the part returning players care about most: the game natively supports gamepads. The official blog post "Explore WoW: Forever with a Gamepad," published at 2 p.m. US Central time on November 3, lays out the whole setup — any XInput-compatible controller works, button glyphs come in Xbox and PlayStation flavors, and the switch lives in the game's own options menu. Wowhead and MMO-Champion relayed it the same day.

That last detail is the practical news for couch-bound and lapsed players alike: gamepad support is built into the client, switched in the game's own settings menu, so there is no third-party addon to install and no configuration file to edit. The same post draws its limits — gamepad support ships in what Blizzard calls a functional beta, interface work is still ongoing, and typing in chat still requires a keyboard.

Switching it on, launch night

There is exactly one path: press Escape, open the Game Menu, choose Options, and pick Gamepad under Gameplay. Six setting groups follow — camera, HUD modifier, frame focus style, action bars, targeting, and raid targeting options. Blizzard's advice for your first hours is modest: find a quiet corner and try moving, selecting targets, and using abilities before you walk into a crowded fight.

One flourish for controllers with supported lighting: it glows red on a Horde character and blue on Alliance.

One d-pad direction, four spells: three bar sets, 84 slots

The gamepad HUD shows four action bars. Hold LT, RT, or both triggers together to switch between them; release and you are back on the default bar. Blizzard's mage example: one d-pad direction holds Polymorph unmodified, Fireball with LT, Frostbolt with RT, and Blizzard with LT + RT — an illustration, not a preset binding. The slots are yours to fill.

For separating combat, utility, and everyday actions, hold LB + RB and tap left or right on the d-pad to jump between three action bar sets. Each set carries four bars with 28 slots combined — 84 assignable slots across all three — and the button layout stays identical as you switch, so another group of abilities is always one trigger-roll away, no menu needed.

Left bumper for allies, right bumper for enemies

LB targets a friendly, RB targets a hostile — tank swaps, heal targets, and switching to the right mob all sit on your shoulders, literally. The rest follows the Xbox naming the blog uses: left stick moves, right stick works the camera, X interacts, A jumps, B backs out, Y inspects; the Menu button opens the main menu, and View changes the focus frame.

That friendly/hostile split is built for group content — relevant from December 9, when the first three raids, Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair, all open the same day.

Backpack, quests, chat: one chord away

Hold LB + RB and press B for the backpack, d-pad up for the quest tracker, d-pad down for chat, or Y to manage buffs. The same entries live on the main radial menu; the chord simply saves you two presses. A gamepad legend sits in the upper-left corner of the main screen and expands as you act, and most panels carry a gamepad footer listing what works where.

The keyboard has not left the party. Chat typing still needs one, and Blizzard frames reduced keyboard dependency as a development goal with a keyboard-free experience as the longer-term aim — so keep one within reach for now.

What Blizzard did not say

The state of the feature, in the post's own words: gamepad support "remains in a functional beta" — not every screen has a footer yet, and interface updates are ongoing. Whether PlayStation controllers need a mapping layer, which models are supported, any on-screen keyboard plan, or a timetable for finishing the interface: not announced.

And the couch-console fantasy stays dead on November 5: the game ships only through Battle.net on PC and Mac, as Wowhead reported after Xbox UK briefly listed the game and retracted its own post on November 2. Your gamepad plugs into your computer, not a console.

Three things to do tonight

  • Dig out the controller and confirm your PC sees it as an XInput device — most mainstream pads of the last decade qualify;
  • Keep the keyboard next to it: launch-night chat still runs through the keyboard;
  • After the gates open on November 5, resist the launch-hour crowd for a few minutes, set up your 84 slots near the starting zone first, and level from there — our launch-week starter guide covers the route (read it here).