World of Warcraft has recently introduced new tools for accessibility and inclusion – including an arachnophobia mode. MyMMO editor Benedict Grothaus tried it out and is a bit disturbed.
The idea is really quite good, and WoW is indeed full of spiders. And in some cases, you can’t even avoid them, as a few popular mounts are enormous gross spiders. Being able to hide them if you’re disgusted by them can be worth its weight in gold.
I personally am not afraid of spiders, but I know that there are people for whom the arachnophobia mode is indeed helpful. Even in my raid, some play with the mode, albeit more out of curiosity and fun.
From what I know: spiders of all kinds are replaced with crabs in this mode. Flying creepy creatures that could also trigger a phobia are now some water striders with long legs.
Since I have been playing a lot of WoW Classic with friends recently and at some point, Naxxramas is on the agenda for the Fresh Start servers, I thought: What do the most iconic spider instances from WoW look like without spiders? Answer: Not better and definitely not less terrifying.
WotLK was also very popular the second time around:
WotLK becomes a quirky horror show
The most spiders in one place can be found – aside from The War Within – in Wrath of the Lich King, one of the most popular expansions of WoW ever with over 12 million players. The entire kingdom of the Nerubians has several instances, and spiders are truly everywhere.
I was particularly interested in how Naxxramas and Azjol’nerub look, because in both instances, there are gigantic spider bosses: Maexxna and Hadronox. And yes, even these spiders with unique models become crabs.
While Maexxna still somewhat resembles a stinging crab to what it is supposed to be, Hadronox is an exaggerated horror portrayal that could easily come from a Chucky movie.
A completely oversized crab with stalk eyes, which is supposed to look friendly and happily bubbles away, is suddenly not so cute in a gigantic spider web:
My favorite NPC is utterly mutilated
I also noticed that some, but not all, NPCs are also replaced. A few Nerubians are now crabs. Others, like Anub’arak, remain crypt lords. That got me thinking.
Because one of the most tragic figures from World of Warcraft is also a “spider” since Shadowlands. When I was finally able to see Amber Kearnen again, I was extremely happy. Now she looks like a bad joke:
I showed the images to several people, and many are asking how gigantic crabs could be better than spiders. They say it’s at least grotesque, if not even worse.
But especially Kearnen the Blade has then given me the final blow. The NPC is one of my absolute favorites in the entire history of WoW, and as a Legion rogue, I have a closer bond with her than most. Somehow, Amber always seems to get the worst treatment: In a new quest, we are supposed to kill one of the best characters to save the world
