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Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere (I wouldn’t blame you, mind) you’re probably aware that World of Warcraft put on its big boots and announced three expansions in 2023. This is downright unprecedented. Even games that plan big, multi-expansion story arcs like Final Fantasy 14 will keep their next expansion tucked under wraps to help keep the hype machine going.
You might also be aware that Undermine(d), the next big patch for WoW, is going to be arriving later this week—and it’s all about the goblins, baby, taking place in the heart of their underground mercantile empire. While at a recent Blizzard event, I had the chance to sit down with game director Ion Hazzikostas and associate design director Maria Hamilton to have a chat about all things green.
Now, you might think that announcing three expansions in one go would put the game’s development team under a bit of time pressure, as would putting out roadmap after roadmap of promises and—so far, keeping to a tight schedule. According to Hamilton and Hazzikostas, though, it’s actually done the opposite. Knowing what’s around the corner lets you lean in.
“I think in a lot of ways,” Hazzikostas tells me, “A patch like Undermined—and being able to spend time building up exposition and a sense of world, exploring side stories—is something that is only possible because of the large narrative structure of the Worldsoul Saga.
“If we had a story that had to be resolved in a single expansion, and we only have a couple of major [content updates] to do it, then, honestly, I don’t think we’d be able to do justice to a place like Undermine and its government culture, because we’d have to just keep brushing ahead with the story.”
It’s a sentiment that Hamilton echoes: “The team is really energized and excited, because we can seed things very early now and pay them off later in a way that is a lot harder to do when expansions aren’t connected in this way … We can take the time to do something like this.”
This does, at least, grok with what I’ve been seeing from WoW in general: A focus on the long-game. For the most part, borrowed power is gone, and the team’s focused entirely on quality of life features and potentially evergreen additions—Delves, Warbands, Hero Talents, and the like all seem additive, rather than temporary. Paradoxically, I’m not surprised it’s mellowed out the devs when it comes to updates, too.
“We can sort of weave everything together in a way that it’s harder to do when you’re doing these shorter stories,” Hamilton adds. “Because it’s a longer story, and we have the opportunity to explore other things and maybe tease and set up things for later. It’s lovely.” It’s at this point I say that it sounds like a relief, and Hamilton nods: “It is. It’s really nice.”
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Kurt Indovina
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