Why WoW: Dragonflight Doesn’t Include Player Housing

World of Warcraft players have long wanted the ability to own and decorate houses in Blizzard’s MMORPG, but it won’t be coming with the game’s newly announced Dragonflight expansion. In various interviews, game director Ion Hazzikostas has explained why.

The short version is that player housing would be a huge undertaking, and while there is broad support for it both among the development team and players, it would be a ton of work while also needing to fit in thematically with the theme of any given expansion.

“Putting together any of the packages of features for an expansion, it’s a mix of what thematically suits the expansion, what’s going to appeal to different types of players, but also what would be required to deliver that feature at the level that players expect and deserve, and what would we have to give up to make that happen… and player housing is a big one,” Hazzikostas said in an interview with WoW content creator Hazelnutty. “It’s one of those things to do right… it’s a big project, a big undertaking, and I would argue that if we were to do it, it would probably have to span multiple expansions–it’s a large enough feature just from the art.”

However, while player housing won’t be coming as part of Dragonflight, Hazzikostas said “the dream is still alive” and that it’s something the team wants to do someday. It’s a sentiment echoed by Hazzikostas in multiple interviews, as well as in interviews with other members of the WoW team. Blizzard knows it’s at the top of the list of requested features, they want to do it, but it seems it is a matter of allocating the proper resources and finding the right time to introduce it.

Player housing, of course, comes with its own set of problems. Square Enix’s MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has endured a digital housing crisis, and is now using a new lottery system to dole out virtual land to lucky players.

What is coming in Dragonflight is a new playable race, the Dracthyr, and a new Dracthyr-exclusive class, the Evoker. It will also introduce a Dragonriding mechanic that should make navigating the new Dragon Isles region more engaging, as well as substantial reworks of the game’s talent system and professions. WoW: Dragonflight does not have a release date, with Blizzard taking a “when it’s ready” approach to the expansion.