Somehow, World of Warcraft Midnight feels different than The War Within, right? There’s a reason for that: Completely different people are making the game.
The next expansion of World of Warcraft isn’t too far away. The addon Midnight is set to launch in the first half of 2026 and will advance the story of the World Soul saga. There will be not only housing but also new features like the “Loot” system and various small improvements to the game’s fundamentals.
All of this could lead to WoW: Midnight feeling a little different than The War Within. The reason for that: A completely different team is working on it.
What has been said about the team structure? Although gamescom 2025 was some time ago, some interviews from it are only now being processed. YouTuber and streamer Preach spoke with Ion Hazzikostas and Maria Hamilton, also touching on the topic of content flood. Because, if you remember, a few years ago there was regularly a content drought in World of Warcraft, mostly between two expansions. Now, however, that is no longer the case—instead, the opposite: sometimes the WoW community has too much content and too little time.
Preach wanted to know how Blizzard managed to free WoW from this slow production cycle and how they got to the point where new content is available in the game every 6 to 10 weeks. Hazzikostas said:
[…] We changed the team structure to be able to create more in parallel. We no longer have bottlenecks in terms of ” overview and confirmation”, but we also do not have disputes over resources. We have people focused on making smaller patches, our live team. We have people focused on making odd-numbered expansions [and] people focused on making even-numbered expansions. People focused on Classic.
Of course, we occasionally borrow from one team to solve a problem in another. But that’s more the exception.
Midnight is a different team than The War Within
What is implicitly said: Different teams work on each expansion of World of Warcraft, basically alternating every time. The team that worked on The War Within will have comparatively little to do with Midnight and is instead already focusing on The Last Titan. That’s not too surprising, as we would probably never have received such a large feature as housing if teams didn’t have a lot of time to work “quietly” on something for the future.
Hazzikostas’ role has also changed now, as he explains later:
The team has grown, and much had to simply be delegated. If you paid attention to titles in interviews or in the credits or elsewhere, you see that. 8 or 10 years ago, I was the game director and we had an art director and a tech director, and that was it. Now I’m here with Maria, who is a design director in terms of content. Tomorrow I’ll be on stage with Paul Kubit, who is the associate game director but leads the Midnight expansion.
We have empowered people to make the decisions I made 8 years ago. My role is now more to ensure consistency and continuity across all teams.
In order for World of Warcraft to remain consistent across all expansions and to ensure that the art style doesn’t change, there are still various senior positions, such as the senior art director. This person then ensures that the graphical direction of the game remains consistent across all expansions so that the “feel” of Warcraft is preserved.
More on the next WoW expansion Midnight can be found in our comprehensive overview.
