WoW Player Housing sneak peek: What Blizzard hasn’t shared yet
Get the latest details on WoW player housing from developer interviews and press events. Full breakdown of features, customization, and future plans.
Table of Contents
Key takeaways:
- Player housing is a permanent feature, not limited to the Midnight expansion.
- Players will decorate homes with trophies, crafted items, and earned collectibles.
- Each house’s interior is fully modular, allowing players to build multi-story structures.
- Neighborhoods are instanced and support social and seasonal activities.
- No pay-to-win elements—only cosmetic items will be available for real money.
We now have fresh details from a recent press event that offered a hands-on look at the system’s current development stage. While some features remain under wraps, there’s a lot to unpack. Here’s your fully updated guide to everything we know about WoW housing.
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We now have fresh details from a recent press event that offered a hands-on look at the system’s current development stage. While some features remain under wraps, there’s a lot to unpack. Here’s your fully updated guide to everything we know about WoW housing.
WoW housing recent updates
The WoW Housing system is nearing completion and already shows strong functionality, though some features are still in progress. During recent testing, players noted placeholder item names, missing search and sorting options, scaling bugs, and issues with decoration recovery. Testers were also not allowed to freely explore neighborhoods, and Blizzard has yet to reveal how players will access homes from the open world.
Many questions—like how pets, mounts, or transmogs will integrate—remain unanswered. Despite these gaps, developers consider player housing a core pillar of WoW’s future, designed to encourage engagement with both new and legacy content. The system draws inspiration from titles like The Sims, Minecraft, TES: Online, WildStar, Valheim, and Final Fantasy XIV.
WoW player housing customization options
During the press event, journalists were allowed to test the housing system’s interior features, revealing a huge level of freedom and creativity:
- Each player will unlock two houses—one themed for Alliance, the other for Horde.
- You must pay a moderate gold cost and complete a short questline to unlock your house.
- Houses begin as blank canvases (or “boxes”) that you can divide into rooms and multiple floors.
- You’ll be able to scale decorations from 20% to 200%, rotate and layer them freely, and combine them into unique creations.
- Each structure has a “housing level” that determines size—though limits weren’t active in the test build.
- Floor, wall, and ceiling textures are customizable.
- Items snap intelligently (e.g., paintings hang, dishes stick to tables).
- Decorations are single-use—you’ll need extras if you want duplicates.
- PvP is disabled in houses and neighborhoods, which are treated as sanctuary zones.
Decorations and furniture
Thousands of decorations will be available at launch, sourced from a wide range of in-game activities:
- Dungeon and raid drops
- Faction vendors and rare mobs
- Crafting (no new housing profession, but crafting rewards will exist)
- Achievements and collectibles
Examples include trophies like Onyxia’s head, thrones from raid bosses, and even a bathroom (with a non-functional toilet door). About 60% of items are repurposed assets, while 40% are entirely new.
Some items will be dyeable, though this feature varies by object. Recoloring walls and floors isn’t yet supported but may come later.
WoW housing neighborhoods
Note:
Neighborhoods and outdoor customization remain areas with limited details. As of now, this is all the information Blizzard has officially shared.
Neighborhoods group ~50 homes into static instances where players will always see the same neighbors—unless they or others move.
- Players can opt to live with friends, guildmates, or random players.
- Neighborhoods will feature seasonal events, NPCs, and local quests.
- Mayors (or councils) could be implemented to help regulate public decoration areas.
- Players can invite guests from outside their neighborhood to visit their homes.
Currently, the entrance to housing from the open world remains a mystery, as developers have yet to reveal how and where players will access their homes.
Where will players have their houses in WoW
Recently, developers were sharing some concepts and ideas on where WoW housing neighborhoods can appear in the future. However, they didn’t make any specific claims. But that information was quite enough for players to start searching possible locations in Azeroth. In our article about the potential WoW player housing locations, we took a closer look at the community’s guesses on where players will live in the Midnight expansion.
WoW player housing cosmetics and pay-to-win
Blizzard reiterated their stance: no pay-to-win mechanics in WoW housing.
- Only cosmetic decorations will be sold for real money.
- Items in the shop will not overlap with earnable items.
- In-game equivalents may exist with visual differences.
A shop tab is already live in the test UI, but its functionality and interface are not final.
WoW housing development goals
We highlighted all key points from recent interviews with the game developers to share with you. First of all, players were asking for this feature for the whole game’s existence. However, since some solutions were impossible due to capacity limits, this idea was nothing more than a dream. The developers were unsure if this feature would be relevant for the game. But now, they decided to give it a confident form. They base key aspects of WoW player housing on the community’s wishes. They don’t just work on what housing has to be. They also keep track of what it is supposed not to be.
Not another garrison
Blizzard has been very clear: this is not a return to Warlords of Draenor’s garrisons. The mistakes of the past—isolating players and tying power progression to housing—are not being repeated. There’s no auction house, no PvP, and no combat advantage to owning a home. It’s purely cosmetic and social.
Will WoW housing be in Midnight only
Despite debuting in Midnight, housing is a permanent system meant to span future expansions. The teaser showed Stormwind-style architecture, but that’s only the beginning—players will have access to a variety of themes and styles over time.
WoW player housing for Classic
Waiting for WoW player housing to appear in Classic expansions would be a strange guess. However, we had some anecdotal evidence of housing development in Cataclysm Classic game files. All of this can be a sign of WoW housing coming to Classic expansions, too. Blizzard hasn’t commented or made any claim on this topic yet, so we can only dream about such an outcome.
Final thoughts
Many players were thrilled by the official reveal of WoW housing in the Midnight expansion—a long-awaited feature requested for years. While excitement is high, there’s still a lot of curiosity and concern about how it will all come together. We’ll keep this article updated as new details emerge.
House decorations in WoW are likely to include rewards tied to major achievements and impressive feats. Want a more prestigious setup? A WoW boost can help you stand out.
So what do you expect from WoW player housing—your cozy hangout spot or a functional trophy room? What features are you hoping to see most? Let us know below!
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