This year’s Blizzcon brought with it a blitz of news for long-time fans, but one thing it didn’t bring with it was any word on if or when the company’s venerable MMORPG might come to new platforms.
World of Warcraft (WoW) might be turning 20 next year, but it’s still stuck on the same two platforms it launched on: Windows PCs and MacOS. With Blizzard openly talking up its ambitions for WoW's next three decades, the idea that it might migrate elsewhere starts to feel like less of a matter of if than of when.
Speaking in the immediate aftermath of Blizzcon’s biggest reveal – a three-part narrative arc called The Worldsoul Saga – World of Warcraft Associate Technical Director Darren Williams said that “we could keep making expansion after expansion but this big moment is to set up that new big moment of storytelling which I think is very exciting.”
Deliberate or not, the announcement of WoW’s next three expansion packs (The War Within, Midnight and The Last Titan) feels like an echo of the sprawling storytelling made popular by the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Williams didn’t shy away from that comparison.
“We’ve consumed all these other forms of entertainment and it’s inspiring to see how big stories can be told and show this past where you are part of this story over multiple expansions,” he said.
Of course, the sheer volume of content in games that are as old as World of Warcraft is can sometimes make be daunting to newcomers. Other live service titles Destiny 2 have tried to circumvent this issue by vaulting older content.
Williams denied that Blizzard has plans for anything like that on its roadmap.
“No, not at all,” he said. Instead, he said that those who dive into the game fresh with the Worldsoul Saga will benefit from the ability to go back and experience that older content.
Even if the message to longtime or lapsed WoW players is that this is the time to come back, Williams is hopeful that things like the cinematic trailer for the new expansion can draw in other audiences.
“You may not need to know everything that Anduin has [gone] through to get where he’s at.”
Williams pointed to Blizzard’s long-running track record when it comes to balancing World of Warcraft’s epic scope with the humanity of its most iconic characters.
Speaking to GamesRadar earlier this week, World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Longdale was more open to the idea of bringing World of Warcraft to consoles than you might.
"We've got these three expansions and we are so excited about them. But, yeah, of course. It would be very insincere to say that we're not, like… of course we're talking about that," she said.
"We are Microsoft now."
That’s far from an official announcement, but it’s a lot more than Blizzard might have had to say on the topic only a few years ago.
Asked for his take on the idea of World of Warcraft expanding to new platforms in the years ahead, Williams had nothing specific to share but reiterated Blizzard’s desire to meet players where they are.
“We have Warcraft Rumble that’s come out on mobile and WoW is on Windows and Mac and those are our platforms right now.”
“It comes back to that accessibility place but we are abreast of the latest technology there and running on a variety of hardware. We want to meet players where they are,” he said, echoing the comments made by Phil Spencer during the Blizzcon 2023 opening ceremony.
Of course, if you’re looking for signs that the developer might be laying the groundwork to do just that, you don’t have to look hard. World of Warcraft: Dragonflight added native gamepad support back in 2022, Blizzard was just acquired by Microsoft and the likes of the iPhone 15 Pro have enough graphical grunt to run titles like Resident Evil Village.
The possibility of WoW coming to something that isn’t a PC feels closer than ever before.
Of course, when and if Blizzard eventually gets to that stage, some work will need to be done in terms of cleaning up WoW’s user interface.
World of Warcraft lead UX designer Crash Reed said that their approach to redesigning the existing user interface in WoW for a version that ran on a device with a smaller or touch-based screen would follow a desire to preserve the core experience for longtime players.
“I think the first thing that we would want to do is [to] just make sure what is the core fun of what people are experiencing in the game, especially if you want to be some sort of cross-platform or something.”
“Something beautiful, something awesome [where] you can raid with your friends [and] you can do stuff like that. I think in this hypothetical world, those would be the core things that we want to hit," he said.
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