The potential for World of Warcraft to expand onto consoles is a widely talked about subject, as the popular MMO nears its 20th anniversary. Surprisingly, the developers also talk about it themselves. Holly Longdale, the vice president and executive producer for World of Warcraft, revealed in a recent interview at BlizzCon 2023 that the discussion about bringing the game to consoles is ongoing within Blizzard.
Longdale told GR that she is optimistic about the possibility of a console version of the game. She thinks the game is well-suited for the transition to consoles, especially considering the existing controller support in World of Warcraft and the advancements in console hardware. She believes that consoles have the potential to manage the expansive and ever-changing world of Azeroth.
Microsoft recently acquired Blizzard Entertainment, which has sparked fan speculation and anticipation about potential collaboration and leveraging Microsoft’s expertise in the console space. If Microsoft were to add the popular MMO to Xbox, it would make sense to expand the player base. We don’t doubt Microsoft would fully support it if the Blizzard team wanted to push it. However, their sights are still PC-based.
“It’s a complicated question. And to your earlier point, for a console audience, the approachability is likely going to be different. Right now, we’re focused on the Worldsoul Saga. But if that comes up then we’ll reexamine things but, man, we’ve got enough to deal with right now,” laughs Longdale. 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. We are Microsoft now.”
Holly Longdale
Blizzard has stated that their main focus for World of Warcraft is the upcoming Worldsoul Saga expansions. They mentioned the need to carefully consider the challenges of adapting the game for console players, aiming to make it intuitive and comfortable to play with gamepads.
Despite Blizzard developers’ excitement about it, there are no confirmed plans or ongoing discussions with Xbox Game Studios about releasing World of Warcraft on consoles. Longdale mentioned that they’ve only had limited interactions since the acquisition was finalized and haven’t had in-depth conversations about the prospect.
While it would be exciting to see World of Warcraft on consoles in the future, fans will have to wait and see how Microsoft and Blizzard handle this possibility. For now, the Worldsoul Saga continues to be the focus of the development of iconic MMOs.
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