"World of Warcraft" housing system is coming. Can dual modes become the new favorite of players?

　　In the upcoming expansion of "World of Warcraft" "Darkest Night", the housing system that players are looking forward to is finally coming. For Blizzard, it is undoubtedly a difficult "challenge" to balance the ease of use and depth of this system, while also solving the performance difficulties brought by huge systems.

　　At the 2025 Cologne Game Exhibition, Toby Lagani, design director of World of Warcraft, revealed in an interview that in the process of designing and building a housing system, "we need to be extra cautious and careful."

　　"The first is the performance issue. World of Warcraft runs on various configurations, and we must ensure that every player has a smooth and satisfactory gaming experience." Lagani said. "The construction of community neighborhoods and houses is a big challenge for us, because they are very different from the game areas and content types we designed in the past."

　"Secondly, from the perspective of player ease of use - some novice players may just want to get started easily, and they may think, 'I just drag and drop a few pieces of furniture, so it's interesting to play'. But I think the essence of the content we create for players is that it can flexibly adjust the depth according to the different needs of the players."

　What Lagani mentioned seems to be the two modes that the World of Warcraft housing system will provide: basic mode and advanced mode. Simply put, the basic mode is similar to the indoor customization functions in life or farm simulation games such as "Animal Crossing". It has a grid system and some restrictions, which can prevent objects from colliding and misaligning. The advanced mode focuses more on players' free play. It removes many restrictions and adds a large number of customization options. Blizzard also gave a complete explanation of how these two models work.

Although the housing system has been a common feature in the competitive games of World of Warcraft for decades, it has not been added since World of Warcraft was launched in 2004. Therefore, players are full of expectations for the launch of this feature, which also puts a lot of pressure on Blizzard developers.

　　"We only have one chance to make a good first impression on players," said Lagani. "It is because of this that the studio has invested a lot of energy - and the time to match it - to build this housing system."

　　"The scale we invested in this feature...the housing system will be launched with the Darkest Night expansion, and we will continue to optimize and support it in every major patch update, future expansion - it will become a core part of the game."