World of Warcraft Midnight is the MMORPG’s eleventh expansion, and it’s bringing a slew of new features. If you compare everything new in the second chapter of the Worldsoul Saga, including bringing the Blood Elf land of Quel’Thalas out of the Burning Crusade servers, this may be the biggest expansion for the game since Cataclysm. One feature in particular has stood out from the rest and has been in the works for a very long time. Housing.
Housing has been a long-requested feature, and it is finally making its way to the game and is exceeding every expectation in its execution. We got to chat with Jesse Kurlancheek, Principal Game Designer and one of the leads of Housing, and Kristy Moret, Lead World Artist, who oversaw the new Eversong Woods and Zul’Aman zones, about Housing and bringing back a ten-expansion-old zone and making it feel modern in an aging Azeroth.
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Our conversation kicked off with one of the hottest topic of Midnight, Housing. Compared to WoW’s competitors, Blizzard’s implementation of the feature gives players a massive amount of freedom to make a house their own. There are no limits to available housing; players can choose from about 50 plots of land in one of the two housing zones where they can be placed, and decorate both the interior and exterior of their new abode.
Additionally, the tools to decorate housing are intricate, while also letting people just copy decorations quickly. So, how long exactly has this idea been in the works, and why now? Per Kurlancheek, housing has been a feature that’s been worked on since before Classic. “I think it started 20-odd years ago. Players have wanted to live in Azeroth from their second day of play. If you look back through old data mining, you can see old videos on YouTube from like 2008 with housing, like props, and stuff that have been tried over the years.”
As for the current iteration that we now all get to play with, Kurlancheek said that this feature has been in the works longer than one may think. “The modern incarnation of housing has been, you know, a prototype for a number of years now. The team has been working on it for a long time at this point.”
Blizzard’s quest to create player housing started 20-odd years ago
Its implementation hasn’t been smooth sailing. Having tech that uses an impressive amount of non-interactable items that can now be manipulated by players was no small task. Some of the items that will be available as an object for housing has, per Kurlancheek, been around for WoW’s 20 years of life. “There are some assets that are 20 years old. If you remembered something with nostalgia from Burning Crusade, Lich King, or even Vanilla, that’s the way you remembered it, and that’s the version of the item you wanted.”
He continued, by talking about how some of the newer objects work, “Flash forward to Dragonflight or War Within, and the assets have obviously come a long way. They’ve been created to a higher fidelity at this point, and through some magic, more recent decor objects, we can dye them. We have channels to change the color of the wood and the cloth and all of those things.”
Bringing objects from across 20 years has not been as simple as clicking a button. Per Kurlancheek, “In terms of how we surmounted the challenges of implementing this Housing, there’s just a bunch of smart people working on it. A bunch of really talented artists and engineers coming up with crazy ways to extend this very old engine in a lot of cases, and update things to be able to put together all sorts of stuff and let players create to their heart’s content.”
As for the tools that players have access to, from coloring to being able to manipulate size, direction, and attachments to other objects, we aren’t just getting the development tools. Kurlancheek explained, “[the housing tools] are brand new tools. The tools that we have for housing are super powerful.”
He added, “A lot of players of games have never really encountered true 3D manipulation tools. And so we started from a place of, ‘hey, we need to make it possible for someone who’s only exposure to navigating 3D space is on their WoW character using the AOE targeting circles and stuff like that. So we knew from the start, we were going to give players a lot of power, They were going to be able to make horrible, horrible monstrosities that would sort of offend our sensibilities, but at the same time, in doing that, they could also make beautiful things.”
Housing tools are all brand-new and made for first-time 3D manipulation users
One key part of object manipulation that has stood out the most from my brief experience with the system is lighting. Objects, like windows or candles, produce lighting that is just emitted and interacts differently with other objects. I was able to somehow make a picture look like a glowing TV with just two well-placed windows behind a picture frame. Similarly, that creativity will require lots of objects and visuals. Could all PCs handle that?
Kurlancheek said wholeheartedly, yes. “We’ve done a lot of optimization and sort of looked at worst-case scenarios of what happens if we stake 50 players crammed into a house with a whole bunch of light sources. What happens to a min spec PC in that world?”
Housing will have limitations. He continued, “Interiors when you go inside your house, since it’s a separate instance, we are much more lax. You can make your own room set up. Players yards, and in the neighborhoods, we are more restrictive. We have tighter decor limitations. Lights are not available outside.”
Moret added, speaking more to how each of the two neighborhood locations has been designed to ease the burden on computers. “One of the long-standing philosophies of the WoW team is that WoW should be able to run on a potato. One of the things that we do on the world-building side to ensure that players can have these massive neighborhoods and still be able not to set their PCs on fire. We do what we call sight blocking.”
She continued, “That means there will be strategic placements of things like cliff walls or will narrow a chasm and kind of funnel you into a specific space. Ultimately, if you are someone who has a lower-end PC and you’re looking for a nice little plot that will not break all of your graphics settings, you’ll probably be able to find something that’s nice for you.”
Kurlancheek also confirmed that in public neighborhoods, you will never be limited by selecting a plot of land. “You’re ultimately responsible for where you choose to live.” In other words, you won’t be forced to select a plot because you were slower to select one than other players in your neighborhood.
You will never be limited by selecting a plot of land in public neighborhoods
As for decor collection, this process is being extended all the way back to Vanilla. From dungeons to older expansions’ crafting professions to even reputations and achievements, new collectible decor items will be added to all these different features throughout WoW’s 20-year history. But, to re-use an object, you’ll need to get it again.
Kurlancheek detailed how different objects will be re-obtained differently. “You do the quest, you get the achievement. Whatever it is, if you earn it once, then generally, there is a way to buy it for some resource again. We want a sort of healthy economy for the crafters. If you have to get one chair crafted for you once, and then you’re forever done, we’re going to very quickly be in a world where there’s an infinite number of chairs and there’s not going to be demand for them.”
For dungeon-rewarded decor items, those will have a 100% droprate but will only drop once per boss. He continued, “When you do a dungeon or a raid, and if it has decor, it will drop a piece of decor every time. And if a raid boss has a head, if it has some sort of trophy, it will drop that 100% of the time. So if you’re running in a party, person X may want it more than person Y, and they have to fight over it. There’s still going to be some amount of effort put into farming your perfect living room or dining room set or whatever it is. But we wanted to make it much more deterministic.”
When asked about how Mythic Plus loot tables will come into play with decor, Kurlancheek wasn’t sure about this specifically. Hopefully, we learn more as we get closer to Midnight‘s launch.
Moving over to Quel’Thalas, we talked about redesigning a land that has gone through several updates through the years and in different games. But Quel’Thalas, the Blood Elf home and location of Xalatath’s target, the Sunwell, hasn’t really been updated since its implementation in Burning Crusade. In fact, even though it was located on Eastern Kingdoms, flying was never enabled and was distinctly separated from the rest of the continent by a portal. Now, that is no longer the case.
Quel’Thalas keeps its in-game and lore-rich history while feeling modern
Moret spoke to the development of the new iteration of Silvermoon City and Quel’Thalas. “The thing that we really wanted to keep in mind when we were updating Silvermoon was the idea that there is going to be a lot of player nostalgia surrounding what they remember of the city and what parts of the city are important to them. There are sections of the city that we’ve rebuilt from the ground up, still paying homage to the original, such as Murder Row. Hopefully, you feel at home, especially if you’re a Blood Elf player.”
She added, “The goal was to respect what has come before us and bring it up to our more modern art standards, and that includes also our modern gameplay standards, which include things like skyriding. And so Silver Moon is a very vertical city, built with skyriding in mind. There are a lot of teleporters that you can take so that you can visit different parts of the city easily. We wanted to ensure that we could pack as much personality into it as possible, while still maintaining some of the original elements that make Blood Elf culture feel so distinct.”
As part of Midnight‘s reveal during BlizzCon 2023, this expansion was to be one where we reunite the elven tribes. Does that mean Silvermoon will evolve over time as we recruit more of these tribes to come together again? Moret says No. Rather, Silvermoon has been made with areas dedicated to different High Elf-based races.
She said, “There are no plans to dynamically adjust what’s in SilverMoon throughout the expansion. The thing that you will find is that there are things like the Nightborne and Void Elf embassies in the city now. There are also call-outs to the idea that the Nightborne and the Blood Elves have opened up a winery together in Goldenmist village. So we did try to play into the idea of the Elves coming together in some way, but it’s not something that changes throughout the expansion.”
Moret also spoke to what specific tribes we’ll see come together in Midnight. At first, it sounded like all Elves, including Night Elves, would be a part of this. Per Moret, it may just be High Elf-based Elves, like Nightborne and Void Elves. “I would say that the Void Elves, Nightborne, and the Blood Elves are the main elven tribes that you will interact with during the expansion. I think we also consider the Harinir a sort of like progenitor race to elves as well.”
Chris Metzen wanted a huge impact with the void’s invasion for World of Warcraft Midnight
Lastly, we talked about Midnight and the new Quel’Thalas’s impact on the old world. You can now fly directly to Quel’Thalas from Eastern Plagueland without running through a portal. This has led to a direct clash between the old (Cataclysm version of Eastern Plaguelands) and the new (Eversong Woods), now sitting next to each other.
Moret confirmed that the divide between the old and new was extended as part of the addition of Midnight‘s content. “We did go in and adjust the pass that enters from the south into Eversong, and we added a brand new mountain range because we also stitched Zul’aman onto the continent as well. So there are some fresh, beautiful mountains that you can see from the Plaguelands.”
The growth of Eastern Kingdoms’ didn’t just come with more land for players to explore. The skybox has changed as well. When you are anywhere on this continent, including all the way in Booty Bay, you can see a rip in the sky in the north from the void invasion. Moret talked about the decision to change the skybox for this continent, similarly to Argus being in the sky in Legion, and Sargeras’s sword being seen on Kalimdor across that land.
She said, “Chris Metzen really wanted to have a huge impact when you see the void come in and invade. And so the art team delivered on that. It is very, very prominent. You always know what the threat is in the sky. I don’t
think you can see it from anywhere outside of Eastern Kingdoms. That’s partially a tech limitation.”
Silvermoon and the new Eversong Woods, now healed of the Lich King’s invasion, are stunning. They are an excellent blend of old and new, and I cannot wait to explore Zul’Aman and more in the coming weeks as we get more and more of Midnight accessible to us in the Alpha.
World of Warcraft Midnight is available in 2026 on PC and Mac.
