WoW Midnight Housing: Blizzard Details Long-Term Support & Future Plans

World of Warcraft players are getting a first look at the highly anticipated housing feature, now available in the beta for World of Warcraft: Midnight. The addition represents a significant expansion of player agency within the game, allowing for personalized spaces and social hubs. While early access has provided a glimpse of the possibilities, the community’s creative output is already exceeding expectations.

Players are sharing screenshots showcasing incredibly detailed and imaginative designs, prompting a mix of awe and disbelief among observers. The level of customization appears to be quite extensive, allowing for a wide range of aesthetic choices.

The potential for player expression is clearly resonating with the community, as evidenced by the elaborate builds already appearing online.

However, the complexity of the system has also led to some self-deprecating humor, with many wondering if they possess the design skills to create something comparable. To address questions about the long-term viability of the feature, headlinez.news sat down with Jesse Kurlancheek, Lead Housing Designer, and Joanna Giannullis, Senior UX Designer, for an exclusive interview.

In the past, Blizzard has introduced features that were later removed, such as farms in Pandaria or garrisons in Warlords of Draenor. Can players be confident that housing will receive ongoing support and content updates with each expansion?

Jesse Kurlancheek: “I can assure you as much as possible that that is the case. We have a roadmap of features and content planned for the short, medium, and long term. We regularly discuss what we’re going to do in 12.0, 12.1, 12.2 and beyond. One of the most exciting things about housing is that if I ask you, ‘Hey, what are the three things you want most from housing?’ and I ask Jo [Joanna Giannullis], Aramis [the PR representative on the call], and ten players, I’ll get a dozen different answers covering the whole spectrum. But most likely, 90–95% of those things make total sense for housing. It’s such a broad and open field that you can’t really say no to many things, and that’s why it’s very exciting to add all of this. And you can see a common thread as we talk about these things: we want players to have an area to express themselves, to be creative, to build what they want, their ideal home in Azeroth.”

“But we also say, ‘We want you to be among other players. We want you to be with your friends or guildmates. We want to give you a space that isn’t just yours, but ours.’ And from there, what excites people? What brings them joy? What makes their eyes light up? What do players do on the first day, the first month, that they want to keep doing, that they want to expand? So we have our roadmap. We have the things we think are really exciting. We have the things we know players want. We know you want more content, more decorations, more of this culture or that, more things from this expansion or that expansion. You want to be able to access these types of features, and we want more customization.”

“We want a better quality of life. We want to be able to do things together that we currently can’t. There are also things you don’t necessarily think about. When we announced neighborhoods in the spring, people started talking about ‘what if…’ scenarios with housing, and that was very rewarding to see. I hope this lengthy answer gives you some reassurance and shows that we’re thinking about this not just as an isolated feature, but as something that will have long-term development.”

Historically, capital cities have served as central hubs for players, offering access to essential services like auction houses and banks. How are you balancing that with the desire for players to spend time in their homes? Will capital cities feel empty if players are drawn to their personal spaces?

Joanna Giannullis: “We expect players to settle into different types of spaces. We’re making sure that many of the things you go to the capital city for will still be there. You’ll still need to visit your profession trainers, complete your crafting orders, visit the bank, and the auction house. There will still be plenty to do there, like watching Brutosaur parades. But we also wanted neighborhoods to be a space where you could socialize more with your friends and guildmates, because that’s a little harder to do in those central cities. So we expect there will be a good balance. We’re also not forcing you to choose where to set your Hearthstone; we’ll give you a real home so you can quickly get to either location and do what you need to while waiting for a raid or whatever.”

Have you considered adding practical benefits to owning a home, beyond aesthetics? While a bank or auction house might be too much, are there other possibilities for gameplay integration? The beta features NPCs wandering around – could they visit player homes?

Giannullis: “Right now, we have cooking stations in your home. There are a few small things, and I’m sure there will be more in the future, that you’ll enjoy doing more in your home, on your plot, or in your neighborhood. There are many reasons to keep going back to your neighborhood. We have events planned with the launch of Midnight, and you’ll participate in them, but they’ll also send you back out into the world. So there should be a good balance between the two.”

Kurlancheek: “We have a pretty strict stance on player power not influencing housing. You should never feel like you have to participate in a housing loop because if you don’t, you can’t access the raid, or you won’t get a 3% DPS increase or whatever. That kind of practical stuff is off the table. What you mentioned about NPCs doing cute, neighborly things is very much part of housing. Feeling like this small part of the world that is yours and your friends’ is alive is important. Seeing NPCs put up umbrellas when it starts to rain, seeing them line up for shops, really brings it to life. But it’s not practical, right? It’s all just ambiance.”

Are you planning to allow shared ownership of homes or the ability to grant decorating permissions to others? A market for interior design services could potentially emerge.

Kurlancheek: “Yes, one of the frequent questions is, ‘I’m not particularly creative or good at using the tools. Can my friend come over and decorate my apartment or house?’ Yes, that’s definitely on our radar.”

Were there any features you had to cut for the initial release that you would have liked to include?

Giannullis: “So much. So much. One thing we were able to include for testing was outdoor rooms, but players won’t be able to access them until we launch Midnight, for technical reasons. But we were excited to get them out for testing. We’re glad we got them out early so players could give feedback, test them, and see what they like. But there are things like that.”

Kurlancheek: “There was outdoor lighting that we had to disable during alpha or beta, I don’t remember exactly, just due to the performance impact. If everyone in your line of sight put 100 lights in their garden, that would cause a problem. So we had to turn that off. We’ll fix it, and it will work after launch, post-Midnight. Yes, there have been several things that people had very close to their hearts that we had to postpone, not cut, but say, ‘That will wait a bit, and then we’ll do it.’”

Could we see more neighborhood types in the future? Currently, there’s an Alliance and a Horde neighborhood, with specific locations within them. Are you considering other environments?

Kurlancheek: “Yes, I think it’s about allowing players to create a space they feel connected to. I keep saying ‘connected’ a lot with housing.”

Kurlancheek: “Giving players a space that truly feels like their own is very important. When designing the neighborhoods, we were very intentional in trying to cover a broad spectrum: here are players, here are homes for hermit players who don’t want to live next to anyone; here are homes in a cute cul-de-sac for 2, 3, or 4 friends; here are homes on the beach, here in the forest, and so on. But that won’t necessarily cover everything, so figuring out what pieces are missing is part of the initial post-launch conversation.”

Giannullis: “Another aspect to add is that we’ve made an effort to explore the world, even in older content, and look for decorations or foliage, things we can add as props and decorations for players to customize their space. So, if they’ve always loved a specific zone in the game, great, we’ll add some of those trees and flowers as decorations they can buy and place in their yard. We’re working hard to offer a variety of decorations that make every corner of the game have its place, and players can go back to older content to get those items and put them in their home.”

Returning to older content and looking for items, what’s been the most surprising, strange, or favorite thing you’ve found and thought, ‘Oh, I have to put this in housing’?

Kurlancheek: “Well, there’s literally a spreadsheet or form people can fill out with things they think ‘we should add this.’ It’s a little unfair to me because I can push a little harder to get certain things included. For example, I tell Jay, who is the lead decorator, ‘Hey, can you add this for me? Just for me, I don’t know if anyone else cares, but I want it.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, okay, no problem.’

“I think the most interesting thing has been seeing this massive game and how players unearth props that have been long forgotten. They say, ‘That was a cool prop, we should include it.’ Someone posted this, it was a shark, a new asset, probably from Battle for Azeroth if I had to guess. It was a shark that had been caught, but maybe was still alive, I’m not sure. But they wanted to make a fishing village in their garden, and I thought, ‘Great.’ Seeing what players are looking for is very helpful to us, because things like that come up and we think, ‘That’s a great asset.’”

Giannullis: “We’ve also had a lot of curious internal requests. Everyone wants goblin items and junk. They’re requested a lot, and it’s very fun. People love them, and one that I think we added was Johnny’s junk pile. If you get the achievement with him in Battle for Azeroth, it’s so funny, you think, ‘Who would want that?’ But as soon as you see it, you want it. It’s like, ‘I have to have that, I don’t know what for, but I know I need it.’ It’s very fun to see people get excited about that kind of decoration.”

Kurlancheek: “String lights. Everyone loves string lights.”

Would you consider making certain housing items super rare or secret? Something equivalent to a Time-Lost Proto-Drake, or a reward at the end of a secret quest, like the Hivemind?

Kurlancheek: “Let me see how I’ll answer this. There’s a catalog that shows all the items in the game, all the decorations. There’s an option to hide items until you’ve acquired them. So, yes, that’s possible.”

Would you lock something behind a world achievement or make something quite exclusive?

Kurlancheek: “It depends on how you define ‘quite.’ Expansion meta-achievements are pretty exclusive, and we have decoration associated with those achievements. Where more conversation is needed is with time-limited things. We generally try to avoid having items where you say, ‘Oh, I need this green sign, but it was only available in a rare event,’ because that feels bad.”

Giannullis: “We also talked a while ago about what kind of decoration to reward for PvP, because we want decoration to be obtainable from everything in the game. If there’s a way to get something within the game, we’re going to allow you to have it as decoration. We wanted to do something for PvP, and the idea of trophies came up. We’ve made a conscious effort to ensure that if something is very exclusive, it’s not something we expect everyone to need in large quantities in World of Warcraft.”

When I log in on December 2, 2025, and have access to this feature, am I going to immediately have a bunch of decorations already, right? Because I have existing achievements, things I’ve done before, so I should have a lot of stuff, shouldn’t I?

Kurlancheek: “Yes, if you’ve been playing a lot for 5, 10, or 20 years, you might get 150 or 200 items when you log in, like a torrent of rewards, and you can say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember when I did that quest in MoP or whatever, and it gave me this or that.’ And with the meta-achievements going on, you’ll start with a very eclectic mix.”

I’m sure what I have will be totally cluttered and make no sense.

Giannullis: “Well, we also give you starter packs, which include some more modern and organized items. So you’ll have a mix of wild things and more basic things, at least to have a bed and a chair. I think we’ll start by giving you a good mix of items.”

Are you considering any copy-and-paste functionality or the ability to save custom object combinations? A lot of people have been asking for that.

Giannullis: “A lot of people have asked for that, definitely copy and paste. Being able, once you have something perfect in advanced mode, not having to do it all over again. We’re definitely paying attention to everything players are asking for. There are a lot of things they want, and a lot of things we want to do, so we’re just deciding what will be most useful for players.”

Yes, the next question is basically the same about ‘export strings.’ If someone wants to decorate a house, show it to others, and someone else can copy it if they have those objects.

Kurlancheek: “Yes, when we talk about any feature within housing, it’s about what’s most useful for all types of players. Something like importing or exporting object combinations helps the ‘interior designer’ type player who wants to offer their services. It also helps players who aren’t necessarily creative or don’t enjoy the mechanical part of decorating. They have a vision, but they don’t want to use all the tools.”

“It also helps players who just want to explore and organize: ‘I have a room for this, another for that, another for this…’ Plus, maybe the most interesting part is that it helps players feel a sense of ownership where they might not have it otherwise. So, if you’re a great decorator and I’m not, and you create your amazing pirate cave, I could take that pirate cave and say, ‘I like it, but it needs more sharks in the water,’ and then add a bunch of sharks. Now, somehow, that’s mine too. The ability to remix content within the game reflects something that already exists on the internet, and being able to do that in the game is also very valuable.”

How are you thinking about things like housing contests and the like? I think about ‘Race to World First’ and how that’s an event to tune into, and I feel like I’d watch an interior decorating show.

Giannullis: “What’s happening is that we’ve already seen a lot of creators emerge who are saying, ‘I’m a housing creator, this is what I do.’ And they’re starting to organize their own challenges and contests, so it’s really exciting to see. I think we’re all watching to see what kind of activities players are doing.”

Kurlancheek: “Yes, and how we can create tools to support that kind of mischief, right? Something like ‘Trial of Style.’ What do players need to be able to do that? What kind of functionality makes sense to facilitate it better?”

Giannullis: “I remember we talked about how many people you can have in your house at once, and that was something we worked very hard on to make sure we could bring it to a good level, because we know people want to throw parties, do all kinds of things, and we’re trying to make what we build support that and be able to handle it.”

Is there a limit to how many people can enter your home at once?

Kurlancheek: “Yes, there is. We’re still determining what the exact limit is. We do stress tests and put a lot of bots in a very decorated house. What happens? In the neighborhoods, regardless of what the solution or maximum number is, we reserve those spots for the people who live there. You’ll always be able to get into your home.”

I know we can decorate the exteriors of our homes. Have you considered allowing two people to jointly own a home or grant decorating permissions to others?

Kurlancheek: “The idea of building together is very appealing, I think. As soon as players can build something for themselves, we want to build things together. And what that ends up being depends on what people want to do or what they find interesting. If it’s just getting together in the town square and hanging balloons because we’re celebrating a birthday, what does that look like? Or do we want to build a racetrack for our mounts around a town, how does that look? Or do we want to do scavenger hunts and duels, and all these different possibilities? What’s exciting?”

Talking about this feels really crazy. It feels like we’re almost talking about a completely different game than WoW, like a game within the game. I could easily do this all the time and my raid team would wonder why I’m not there.

Kurlancheek: “That’s a real concern, by the way, that there are people who will find housing really engaging and say, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the raid tonight. I’m busy with my house.’”

I don’t know if that’s a problem they even need to solve, but you were talking about creators who just want to dedicate themselves to housing. And I don’t know, has that changed the team’s perspective on how to approach this? Has it changed the holistic game design perspective?

Giannullis: “I think we’ve always wanted to make sure we’re in this for the long haul. This is a feature that we know is going to be in the game for quite a while, and we’re going to keep adding content, not just with each patch, but in future expansions, and we want to keep growing it. So, when you say, ‘Oh, what about all these things we have?’ It’s like, yes, over time, yes, let’s do it. Tell us what you want and let’s see what we can do.”

The idea of building together is very appealing, I think. As soon as players can build something for themselves, we want to build things together

That’s how we eventually got the dance studio. This is the way.

Kurlancheek: “Oh, the dance studio is, that’s a very easy goal to reach. People will set that up very quickly.”

I’m sure they already have.

What’s the most important feedback you’re getting from players right now and what are your plans to address it?

Kurlancheek: “I’m going to rephrase that as ‘critical feedback,’ because the most frequent feedback is simply, ‘We want more decorations, more features, more of this, that, and the other.’ I think one of the topics that’s discussed the most is that the outdoor decoration limits are too low. People want to be able to build more things outside their house. We’re working on it, we’ll see where things land, and overall, we want players to be as creative as they want to be. Imposing restrictions is never the goal within any of our guiding principles.”

Giannullis: “I know a lot of players are giving feedback on UI details and UX on the act of decorating, and there isn’t one big issue. There are a lot of things, and we know they’ll help players decorate better. I think we’re just trying to keep all of that in mind. We’re also paying a lot of attention to accessibility. We know there are things that might work for one player but not another. So we’re just keeping our eyes open to what we’re seeing and making sure they’re things we can address in the future.”