World Of Warcraft Midnight: How Blizzard Is Planning On U...

World Of Warcraft Midnight: How Blizzard Is Planning On Upending Player Housing As We Know It WOW exclusive Cover

Our exclusive World of Warcraft Midnight interview dives into player housing and the bright future of the long-running MMO.

By Chris Carter Published 15 minutes ago Chris is A Gaming Editor at ScreenRant. He has been a professional writer since 2009, and has written for top TV, comics, movie, and video game outlets like Engadget, Polygon, Destructoid, and more. He brings with him an expertise in every game genre, no matter how niche or mainstream. You may know him as the former Managing/Reviews Editor of Destructoid, where he published hundreds of game reviews across every genre, including MMOs, sports games, and Metroidvanias. Find Chris on Twitter @_SRChris. Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

When World of Warcraft: Midnight arrives in 2026, it's going to be doing a lot more heavy-lifting than the average expansion. Blizzard is going all-in on Midnight, offering up new story beats, extra content to conquer, and most importantly, player housing.

After many years of player requests, the time has finally come for player housing to hit World of Warcraft. We spoke to several key members of the development team to figure out how this all came into being, as well as what's to come. Also, stick around for some thoughts on World of Warcraft's future from director Ion Hazzikostas.

Player Housing Is A New Pillar Of WoW Going Forward

"We Made It Seamless To Visit Anybody You're Socially Connected To"

We had the opportunity to speak to Jesse Kurlancheek, Principal Game Designer & Joanna Gianulis, Senior UX Designer, to pick their brains about player housing, the reception so far, and how it all came to be. So, how did the idea of player housing come about after all this time? Let's hear straight from Blizzard's mouth, through Kurlancheek:

"Over the course of many, many years, of many people trying at different points, in fits and starts, you know, over the past 15 years or so, it was sort of time to do it in earnest. The tech was coming along. We knew, sort of, if we wanted to get here, we had to start here. Tech challenges, figuring out engine problems, and figuring out art pipelines. So it's been a big lift for a lot of people across the team and partner teams to get us here."

Given how many games have attempted player housing and stumbled, it's great that Blizzard got it right the first time around, based on my extensive experience with the beta. Pressing further on how tough it was to concept, Kurlancheek expands upon their thoughts, further describing the process of actually cramming player housing into a massive, decades-old game:

"There are lots of challenges up and down the line. You know, just doing a feature this large is naturally going to cross expansion boundaries, figuring out the tech solutions for problems we didn't even know we were going to necessarily have years ago, getting the teams in place, getting the overall sort of design vision and stuff set up where everybody agrees and is really psyched on it, and then going through all the iteration, right?"

It turns out those fits and starts took a lot of work, as features continued to pile on, with the goal of nailing it out of the gate. Kurlancheek goes on:

"So, you know, knowing two years ago, we said, okay, let's make this decision, or three years ago, let's make this decision, and then realizing a year later, actually, that's not the greatest decision. Let's, let's upend it, and let's change that, and let's consider the fact we are going to now sync six months of dev time, or three months of our time, or whatever, because, ultimately we want this to come out as best in class, top tier experience, and it's really just sort of hard charging that."

Check out our exclusive time-lapse video of a Horde player decorating their house from start to finish.

Joanna Gianulis excitedly went into further detail about how important accessibility was in player housing, and why Blizzard wanted to do it differently from many other popular MMOs:

"We knew from early on that everyone was going to be able to get a house. That was, I think, one of the first things you said, Jesse, was like, this is for every player. Everyone's gonna get one. So we had already set off to make it really easy and really accessible and approachable for players, and we just continued that through the whole experience. It was really important to me that decorating felt that way. It should feel really natural and easy."

In my experience with the beta, this is by far the most detailed and easy-to-use player housing system I've encountered in a big MMO. As far as Gianulis is concerned, it needed to be as convenient as possible:

"It should be as easy as if I want to, like, move a chair in my own house a few inches over, I can do it, it should feel the same way because that's where my character lives, and it should just feel good. So we kind of kept that whole philosophy going of just like, What is the easiest, most intuitive way that people will want to decorate, and what feels good for us, and what's going to feel good for the players, and what's going to feel good for different types of players. So, for example, someone with accessibility needs, versus someone that wants to, just like, put something together really fast and making sure that the controls are servicing all those different types of players."

So far, it seems players have been enjoying the player housing system in the beta, which is coming to The War Within on December 2. Kurlancheek shares a bit of the feedback so far:

"The reception has been incredible. I think we first teased housing last year about this time, it was in November at the 20th anniversary, and then in January or so, we started talking in earnest with the players about it, and they've been fantastic all throughout. You know, they let us know what they think, always, and they've been having a wonderful time with it. It's been really gratifying to sort of see what folks are making, to watch how they're pushing the system. And yeah, I'm really excited to see what they do in the coming weeks and months."

There's still plenty of people at Blizzard who are huge fans, and see this as a task they need to get right. Take it straight from Kurlancheek: "I think we're both relatively new, like we're not new to the team, but compared to other folks, so it's a little interesting. I know, as a player, I always felt okay paying for my subs and spending a lot of time on WoW, because I always felt like it's never going to go anywhere. It's always going to be here. I don't know why I always felt that way, but it hasn't changed since I started."

Thankfully, players can jump into the expansion and access the player housing system in minutes. According to Kurlancheek, it was by design: "Our goal was to get players from the boat in Exiles Reach to housing as soon as you can. And to that end, like, literally, as soon as you get off the boat on that first island, it says, Would you like to go through the rest of Exiles Reach, or would you like to play in housing? And then if you go into housing, we take you through the housing tutorial. And you know the goal is, housing is just another pillar of WoW gameplay."

We knew from early on that everyone was going to be able to get a house

Apparently, you can jump into player housing even quicker than expected, and it ties into the game as a whole far more than I initially expected:

"And so if you are interested in having a house, decorating, and living in Azeroth, we want to get you into that as soon as possible. If it is not necessarily appealing, or it's not like your first instinct, like, yeah, I want to go play WoW and play housing. We also want you to engage in housing at some point. And so you will see, you'll see bread crumbs, you know, here's some decor that you get from a quest. Or here's some profession recipes to make housing decor. And so, like, if you find those things like, yeah, come on over to housing and try it. Put them down and check it out."

Housing is another pillar in WoW's gameplay.

Capping things off, I inquired about the siloed approach to player housing, and if the team interacted with Blizzard at large to figure things out:

"I think you can sort of see there's obviously no direct lines there, but you can see a lot of influence and conversations around stuff like the social structures and the social experiences of things like social spectacles of things like only fangs and hardcore and stuff like that, and how that evidence is with the players and how the viewers consume it. You know, we talk a lot, about neighborhoods and what it's like for a guild or a group of friends to have a shared space, and what you do with that space is, certainly, you know, keeping an eye on some of the player experiments and stuff that happened there."

Azeroth Is Going To Be Changing A Lot For Midnight

"It Almost Brought Me To The Verge Of Tears With How Nostalgic It Felt"

Shifting gears a bit, we spoke to Jay Hwang, Principal Artist & Garth DeAngelis, Associate Production Director on World of Warcraft: Midnight, and learned a lot about not just player housing, but the expansion as a whole. We wanted to dig into the purple of it all and see what inspired the art direction of the upcoming expansion.

Hwang explains:

"According to the story you know, of Midnight, I know that the artist worked really hard to kind of go into that kind of darker kind of feel overall. I can talk to housing a little bit in that even though housing and Midnight, the themes don't exactly line up. It's like, 'welcome home' or 'welcome to the Void War.' We still wanted to make sure that the art we're giving all the players for housing reaches a wide audience. So like, if you wanted to do a kind of a Void Elf, kind of style house, you definitely could, if you wanted to move away from that, you could do something a little bit more like mechy. I'm sure you've seen some of the images online, of the things that people have built, and it's been amazing."

We want you to hit the ground running.

While Hwang has been with the company for some time, by contrast, DeAngelis is a relative newcomer. But that didn't stop him from talking about the expansion in a way that I haven't heard often from a Blizzard developer:

"I had a blast going through the first zone that you're going to experience in Midnight. I am not a lifelong WoW player, unlike a lot of a lot of people on the team, but so I'm, relatively speaking, a new inductee to the incredible world. It absolutely blew me away going through it and being able to see the development of it. And then I went back and researched, you know, the original Eversong Woods, because I'm seeing all these threads from longtime fans that are, you know, literally sharing feedback with the team."

DeAngelis ended up loving it far more than expected, which is a feeling that a lot of World of Warcraft fans share:

"This almost brought me to the verge of tears with how nostalgic it felt, and the emotion that they felt going back to this place that they know and love, but see, it sort of brought a new breath of life into it, into the modern age of Warcraft. So I absolutely love going through every area, and all of the wonderful places there. I'm a huge fan of elf lore, inside and outside of Warcraft. You know, even just classic Tolkien."

Regarding those zones, they'll be packed with things to do without feeling barren. I wanted the team to dig into the difference between Midnight and other expansions, and how the philosophy of world design differs from past works in the WoW universe. DeAngelis elaborates:

"Midnight still has large zones. I wouldn't say they're Dragonflight size zones, because, like you said, the team kind of went wild with those, and they had to, because of the advent of that expanded version of flight, War Within had some big zones. Midnight still has a very, very large footprint. Overall, it's enormous...Silvermoon, and the Isle of Quel'Thalas and all those places So, just purely, from the world size relative to The War Within, were comparable in terms of actual footprint. We are smaller than Dragonflight, but that's expected because we didn't want the design of Waking Shores and Dragonflight-driven zones to be comparable to something that's back on the mainland. There's an enormous amount of discovery still to happen that I think is very comparable to past expansions."

What's In Store For The Future Of Player Housing?

While it would be easy to drop player housing on people and leave it alone, Blizzard is committed to the long-term view. Player housing is here to stay and will remain a pillar of World of Warcraft for many years to come. I pressed the team on what's to come in the future, and got a fascinating reply from Hwang:

"Yeah, so I'll say this all like, this is not promising anything you know, this is just like us, you know, trying to get into future ideas. I would love to say that we know what everyone's going to want, but it's like we've created a tool, like we made a hammer, but we don't know what you guys are going to make with it, right? But one thing that we are seeing, even with PTR videos, beta videos, that are already happening, is people are kind of going hog wild with, like, the creativity of it.

Based on the examples and works I've seen already on the internet from the beta, the skill ceiling of player housing creations can only go up from here:

People are making things like mechs. They are making houses in the caves. You know, they're doing like force perspective to fake windows and a bunch of stuff. That's really, really cool. Again, probably not say anything, but like, one thing I've seen people do is they've made like a parkour course, like inside their house, and they've invited their friends to come and, like, try it out, which is cool. Or I've seen people make mazes out of their house with, like, secret walls and different kind of traps, you know, to the extent that they can make a trap."

It turns out the team has ambitious goals, which I hope can come to fruition one day:

"And I think an interesting idea in this space, and something that would be nice to explore in the future, is user-generated content in this space, like never before have players actually had this much freedom to make stuff on their own with our tools and art and stuff like that. So like a pipe dream again, not promising anything, would be like, Oh, what if one day players can decide that they want to give out their own reward, like a decoration. They have a decor that can trade out to somebody, and they go, you have to get to the top of my parkour. And if you can, I'll give you this thing for free. You essentially have now created a fake quest, but that is custom for players doing it for themselves. Like, that's cool. You could do that. So that is very interesting to us, and something that we're keeping an eye on.":

DeAngelis happily jumped in, explaining how much the team has stress-tested player creation, and how internally, some developers had a field day with it:

"[One of our team members, Jay] was not allowed to compete in those competitions after a while because he was a wizard. I remember, like, naively thinking, like, Okay, WoW, is gonna have housing. It's gonna be pretty cool. I messed around with it the first time I had my little box of an interior room. And, you know, I'm like, Okay, I'll put a chair here and a table there, and a window here. And then my mind was blown when I saw what you can actually do with it, with designers like Jay, creating, you know, partitions, split-level rooms, diagonal walls, and, you know, secret rooms. And that's just the layout, right? Forget all the fixtures and the decor that you can put in to create your own vibe. But it truly is endless in terms of self-expression, the stuff that you're going to be able to do. And really, the only limitation is your creativity. So it's, it's, it's going to be incredible.

Our Chat With The Director Of WoW On The Game's Future

Ion Hazzikostas Had A Lot To Say

I think before [Midnight], my high-water mark is probably Legion.

This isn't my first time speaking to Hazzikostas, and I joked that the last time I checked in, the current expansion was his favorite. His view hasn't changed much, but he had great insight into why that is:

"It's always a tricky question, right? It's like, it's like asking who your favorite kid is [laughs]. Yeah, I think Midnight really has the potential to be our best expansion ever. And it's not just a canned PR statement; I think the energy and passion the team has put into this one are really special. I can't wait for people to experience the full stakes of the story and to see millions of people unleashed upon housing and all the rest. So yeah, I think before that, my high-water mark is probably Legion. Okay, also bias there, because that was like my first expansion as a game director, but my favorite, I think this one can top it."

As someone who used to do server-first raids and now utilizes the LFR (looking for raid) tool, I wanted to dig deep into how Blizzard is balancing both types of players. One caters towards a typically hardcore playerbase, and the other is more casual and might log on one or two times a week to unwind:

"I mean, I think the answer is, as we've done, more difficulty options. Making sure that we're keeping, you know, that depth and that challenge. For people who want to compete, who want to server-first clears, when they want to be the best. They want to play with a bunch of folks who are motivated by the same things. I think that Mythic Raid progression in World of Warcraft is as challenging and as deep as it's ever been at any point in the game's history, but we've complemented that with much more approachable ways of experiencing that content, whether that's a friends and family group that's going to get together on normal mode. Or whether it's jumping into LFR, or the addition of our story mode and more within it's going to be continued all through Midnight, where you can just use solo alongside NPCs to face off against sort of the signature narrative, you know, load bearing opponents in our raids, so that you don't have to, like, watch a video on YouTube, or, you know, to learn what happened at the end of the battle with whoever, and you can experience it yourself."

Reflecting a bit, Hazzikostas talks about lessons learned:

"And I think you know that really is emblematic of the ways in which WoW has evolved with our players over the last 20 years. I think it's no secret when WoW first came out and we were first playing it, we had a lot more free time and a lot more flexibility, absolutely, and, you know, sunk a whole lot of hours into the game. But there's tons of people who love WoW, and want to keep a connection with this world, but we don't have the same time and, you know, flexibility that we used to, so it's important for us to create ways for players to keep up that relationship on their own terms.

It was a gradual process, according to Hazzikostas:

And that's, you know, everything from alt [alternate character] friendliness to make it easier to just get into the game and play multiple characters, to new features like delves in The War Within, to give meaningful solo content if you only have a little bit of time to jump in and you don't, you know, can't be bothered applying to or dealing with a group. We want to make sure the story and progression for you and more. But that's something that really balances between old and new, between casual and hardcore, between all these different play styles. That is, like, the primary thing that keeps us occupied thinking about the game's design."

Player housing was kicked around honestly before the pandemic, and we were seriously committed to it during Shadowlands.

Drilling down further, I wanted to get a ballpark number on who uses LFR compared to other forms of raiding, and Hazzikostas obliged: "I would say, I mean, a ton of people do LFR. I think it's probably an equal number playing LFR as their primary form of raiding, as players do Normal, Heroic, and Mythic combined. Which is not surprising, right? It's just completely flexible to suit your own schedule. That's been the case for around as long as LFR has existed."

As someone who has played World of Warcraft since the beginning, I've also seen many mechanics shift over the years, including those in dungeons. I asked Hazzikostas about Blizzard's current dungeon philosophy, and what changed over time: "I mean, I think that the Mythic Plus system that we've had since Legion has really been the linchpin of ensuring that dungeon gameplay is relevant throughout the end game. And that's not going away."

He also reconfirms a Midnight feature:

"I recognize that the timed format there may not be for everyone, which is part of why we've, you know, always, we've tried to add standalone mega dungeons that are more like five player raids, that are not about, you know, beating a timer, but just taking on challenging foes and working together with a small group, we're going to have, you know, Mythic dungeons available right at launch at Midnight. So as you level up, one of the first things you can do is, you know, get together a group and go dive into these new experiences. But yeah, and I think that small group cooperative gameplay, the tank, healer, DPS, reliance on one another, is a hallmark WoW and games like it. I think that before Mythic Plus, there was definitely a stretch there where it wasn't clear what the role of dungeons was, which is one of the things that drove us to develop that system back in Legion."

Having played WoW since Vanilla, I've seen dungeons evolve so much over time, both in terms of value and strategic approach. Using data points from WoW Classic, Hazzikostas thinks the playerbase has evolved as well:

"I think as more in game activities like Raid Finder came into existence, it wasn't really clear what the purpose of queuing up for random heroic dungeons or whatever was still supposed to be, the way people approach them has changed, and I think, I think that's less about the game's design and more about how players approach online gaming and tackling the challenges they're in. There's definitely more sharing of knowledge than ever before, and it's more of an efficiency mindset than ever before. And I think, you know, even though players used to, back in Burning Crusade, let's say very tactically, use crowd control and polymorph one mob and sap another mob when tackling a pull in a dungeon, players in Classic today...you know, same content, different players..they're just, you know, AOEing things down because they've learned enough to get good enough at the game to realize that, like, you can do that, and you can finish the dungeons twice as fast."

WoW is definitely not the same game as it was back in the old days, and that can be a great thing in some ways. According to Hazzikostas, it's a mindset:

"And so I don't think we're going to really be able to go back to an era of slowing things down and requiring those, you know, that level of control. But I think, you know, a lot of that is just us responding to how our players are approaching content and what they're looking for. And, you know, we build dungeons of different shapes and sizes. We also, of course, have the introduction of delves to complement them for people who want more flexibility. But I think they've really evolved in conjunction with our player base and just us looking at what our players want more of want less of, we hear loud and clear each expansion which dungeons are the most popular and which are the least popular, and we glean from that what we can and kind of use that to inform development of the next round."

Lore-wise, there might be significant story implications in Midnight, so I implored Hazzikostas to give us any kernels he could muster before the game's March 2026 arrival:

"I mean, so we still have that core early Exile's Reach experience that brand-new players come into. But from there, we look to get you directly to the Dragon Isles to start the Dragonflight experience. There, we found that getting dumped off into Orgrimmar or Stormwind could be overwhelming for players who were still, who were still just kind of getting their bearings and understanding the basic mechanics of WoW. But we've, you know, tuned it and polished it to really be a pretty seamless experience that takes you from Exile's Reach to the Dragon Isles, through that lore, walking through a version of The War Within campaign, and right to the doorstep of Midnight."

Blizzard will have concessions for returning players, too:

"Again, we previously used to just kind of like dump you in to pick up where you left off. We recognize that a lot of players, if you've been away for a while, may want to get caught up on major changes that have happened, and system-wise, changes to your class. And so we have a more localized, themed experience set in the Arathi Highlands in the Eastern Kingdoms that returning players go through before having their quest log cleared and their bags cleaned up, and kind of being sent on their way to get up to speed and get towards Midnight. We've done a bunch of focus testing with new players and returning players to help catch pain points here and refine the experience, but it's something that we're going to always continue to work on, polish, and improve. Because, you know, as much as we want to do everything we can for our existing core players, the health and future of World of Warcraft require that it stay approachable for new and returning players as well."

The reality is, we're going to be guided by our players

Capping things off, I asked him a simple question: Where do you see WoW in 10 years? He gives a great answer:

"Still around, still kicking, I think hopefully, still at the forefront of the genre, and really, you know, defining what it means to be a persistent online community in a world. But I think right now, I would say our focus is on the next five years. And, you know, we have ideas for where we want to go in the very long run. But the reality is, we're going to be guided by our players. We're going to be guided by our community and the response we see to the choices we make every step of the way. So it's almost impossible to predict where that's going to lead us, because, you know, humans are uncertain, if nothing else. So I think housing, as we're rolling out just around the corner, represents, I think, one of the most exciting features we've ever added to WoW. Still, it's also a foundation that we're going to work on building together with our community."

As usual, the players are at the center of it all:

"I think, I think when building something that has has real social underpinnings, we're always hesitant to take our design too far before getting it into players' hands, because we don't want to make too many guesses and assumptions about what people are going to want more of, what they're going to want to what they're going to want less of, and, you know, once they get in there. And so I think we're going to be looking very closely, starting, just in a few weeks, all the way through the net launch and beyond, to understand how we can best empower our players, how they're looking to use housing, have looking to connect with each other through this feature, and that's really going to guide what our roadmap looks like, you know, in the years to come. And the same is true for other facets of WoW."

I also managed to get one more question about the eventual addition of Murlocs as an Alliance race (which has been a running request from my wife, who doesn't play WoW, but would if they were added). He cheekily responded: "Communication might be a challenge, but maybe we can figure something out."

Do I think World of Warcraft is going to be around in 10 years in its current state? Anything is possible. But as we've seen over the years, it's foolish to bet against WoW.