A small change is making waves in World of Warcraft. Because characters will soon no longer be just “male” or “female” during creation.
The alpha of WoW: Dragonflight is now live, and many selected individuals are already roaming the Dragon Isles and providing feedback on the new features. But alongside the major updates, like the revamped professions, the Dracthyr or dragon riding, there are also countless small changes to details. Some of these catch the eye and spark discussions, because:
Blizzard has removed the symbols for “Male” and “Female” from character creation.
What was discovered? Those creating a new character in the Dragonflight alpha will no longer see the symbols for Male and Female when selecting a race. Instead, there are 2 silhouettes of different body shapes, simply named “Body 1” and “Body 2”. The functionality behind it hasn’t changed – it still leads to the same options as before.
Why is Blizzard doing this? A while ago, the developers of World of Warcraft set the goal of offering players more options when creating their characters. The possibility for many diverse characters should be created. Therefore, in recent expansions, numerous new cosmetic adjustments have been made, such as new skin colors for humans and elves, new eye colors, or adjusted hairstyles and face shapes. All players should be able to create a character according to their wishes. This also includes a possible representation of non-binary characters.
By the way: World of Warcraft is not the first game to move away from the binary “Male/Female” designation in character creation. Other games such as Monster Hunter Rise, Halo Infinite, or Elden Ring now also refer to their body shapes neutrally.
Is there more to come? This can be assumed. Lines of code have already been found in the game data that suggest more updates are on the way. Although they are not yet implemented – and may not be – there are already hints that players can choose their character’s pronouns, meaning “he/him”, “she/her”, “them/they” in English. Should this be implemented, it would likely have little impact on the game and would only come into play in some NPC dialogues (like quest texts).
A change that is already considered confirmed, however, is expected to hit the alpha in the coming weeks: it should be possible to choose the character’s voice, which has been confirmed by Game Director Ion Hazzikostas in an interview (via wowhead). This would make it possible to give a character with a – so far – female body a male voice and vice versa.
World of Warcraft is trying to become more inclusive and introduce more options for representation – this is just another step in that direction.
