After 20 years, World of Warcraft will finally have player housing. But you'll need to wait until the expansion to see it: 'It is a huge undertaking'

World of Warcraft was the most popular MMO for a long time. One thing has always amazed me: despite having been out for more than 20 years, WoW never took a serious look at player housing. There were garrisons. But whereas games like FF14 or The Elder Scrolls Online have seen entire communities form around their customisable homes, WoW has resisted. Until now.

Ion Hazzikostas casually mentions that the team has "one more thing to share" with you. Fade to black. Imagine a warrior, like me, opening the door after a night of drinking and staggering into his chair next to a fireplace. He then pours down a mug with "home sweet home" on it.

In an interview with Tyler Colp of PC Gamer, it was confirmed that this is player housing. "It's in fact what it appeared to have been--player housing will officially be coming to World of Warcraft", but alas, the big logo slapped on the end of trailer says "in the Midnight extension."

The War Within, the third expansion of WoW announced in November of last year, is still in its infancy. Midnight is the second. You can expect to wait between 1-2 years until you can decorate your own digs.

Hazzikostas says that the delay is intentional, given how important the feature is to players. "We want to give them a sneak preview of what our team is cooking." This gives us the opportunity to have more open discussions about it, which isn't possible if it's a secret feature.

These conversations are aimed at "hearing people's excitement, expectations, and what they would like to see in housing and World of Warcraft", with the hope that this will "help guide the development efforts of the team over the months to come."

Hazzikostas says: "It was an idea that had been tossed around for a very long time. But we knew we needed to do it correctly. It's an enormous undertaking. We've been able develop enough technology to support the system to see a clear way to deliver this to players."

This includes "seemingly innocent" tech, such as how Delves seamlessly plonks you in a personal instance without a load screen. These new innovations "brings us an extra step closer to making housing a realty... there are elements of garrisons and island expeditions that were used to build the tech which made delves possible. There are pieces of this that will make housing a possibility."

The real test will be whether Blizzard can give players the same kind of freeform furniture construction, placement, or rotation that we've seen on other MMOs. I've always been fascinated by what players can create. That's the kind of stuff that will make a system such as this sing. Hazzikostas, however, "can't be more excited to fully pull back the curtain when Midnight approaches."