World of Warcraft is getting housing, which was one of the biggest news in the MMORPG in recent years. Now, first players outside of Blizzard have been able to take a look at the feature and are absolutely thrilled. Their impressions are very well received in the community, but they raise a major concern.
This is what we know about housing in WoW:
- At the Warcraft Direct, Blizzard announced that housing will come to WoW – after over 20 years. Every player will have access to their own house, which they can furnish.
- The system itself already strongly resembles WildStar, which has since been discontinued. However, the housing system of the deceased MMORPG is still considered one of the best in the genre.
- Housing is supposed to come in 2025. At PAX East, Blizzard invited some creators and journalists to see the housing live.
This is new now: Blizzard has given several players access to a preview version of housing, including the well-known YouTuber and WoW expert Preach. He praises in his video: “Housing is much better than you think […] and exceeds expectations by far.”
Preach explains that Blizzard has looked at housing in other games. Valheim, Final Fantasy XIV, and WildStar are just a few examples, and Blizzard is doing exactly what helped the studio succeed in the past: they take good systems and make them better. Some of the details from the video are:
- Houses are larger inside than outside, you can design the interior almost any size and shape – like a large hall, maze, jump puzzle, or mage tower.
- There will be a limitation on furnishings, but it will be “somewhere around 10,000” and is virtually unreachable.
- Nevertheless, performance is not impaired; anyone who has no problems in the open world can also enter a full house.
- There are no mechanics like gravity and stability, you can build however you want, even if, for example, a set table should float in the middle of the room.
- The building tool is incredibly easy to use, even in “advanced mode.” You immediately understand how everything works.
- All functions can be bound to keys for easier building.
Even the exteriors are supposed to be buildable in some form, so the neighborhood looks good. How exactly these “neighborhoods” will be kept alive is still unknown, but the goal is to avoid vacant houses and plots. Anyone who wants can immerse themselves in housing – and those who don’t want to will miss nothing.
“They have opened Pandora’s box”
Preach, like many other participants, is very enthusiastic. Blizzard even asked how they could improve housing, and suggestions like an import/export function or the ability to hire more skilled builders came up.
Some players who apparently did not play during WoD asked about “utility” like herbs or an auction house – something that the devs were cautious about. Garrisons in Warlords of Draenor had that and were the death of the economy and open world. However, for any kind of utility, “they aren’t saying no.”
Nevertheless, housing will be an integral part of the game and all future content will take this into account, so there will always be new content for the houses.
On Reddit, Preach’s impressions have particularly generated a lot of joy. It is said, for example: “I hear very few downsides, and that hypes me up so much.” However, some users already see the biggest problem with housing: the community.
The general impression right now is that housing is much better than many expected. Exactly because of this, the fear is that fans now see their wishes being considered and demand more and more, eventually so aggressively that they tarnish what is actually a good system.
Complaining on a high level and particularly criticizing systems that actually do exactly what fans want has been a traditional sport among Blizzard fans for years and spans across all games. But in 2025, you will be able to see for yourself what housing is all about (- but please, complain quietly). Until then, you can find all the information about housing in WoW in our overview.
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