Rumors and hopes regarding a Chrono Trigger remake have been raised again over the past week, driven by recent comments from Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii which do not deny nor confirm the existence of such a project.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger. As a result, Square Enix has launched various projects to celebrate the classic RPG. This includes a brand new album featuring piano arrangements of character themes, a character popularity poll (Frog took the top spot, as reported by Famitsu), and orchestral concerts to be held in Japan next January.
However, this sudden celebration of Chrono Trigger after very little fanfare about the cult classic has prompted speculation that Square Enix is leading up to a bigger reveal of a Chrono Trigger remake.
Hopes were reignited again among Japanese-speaking fans on November 30, when Yuji Horii was directly asked in a discussion program on YouTube if all the recent Chrono Trigger 30th Anniversary projects and events are hinting that a remake is in the works. Horii did not outright deny it, responding with “I can’t say,” “You shouldn’t ask that!” and “I’ll get told off!”
This and publishing executive Kazuhiko Torishima’s jokey follow-up cries of “There is! There is (a Chrono Trigger remake)!” have led to Japanese speaking fans hoping, once again, that a remake is in the works despite the fact Square Enix hasn’t made any announcement. “I wonder if it will be announced next year?” users wondered on X.
Chrono Trigger was originally released for the Super Famicom/SNES in 1995. With the involvement of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, the RPG is beloved by fans and is considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time. Although an upgraded version is currently available to play through Steam and on smartphones, fans have been calling for Chrono Trigger to get the remake treatment for years.
The recent Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes have also got Chrono Trigger fans hopeful about seeing the SNES game recreated in the same style. “I want to play Chrono Trigger with beautiful graphics like these!” said a user on X. “Please, Square Enix!” Official posts by Square Enix accounts about Chrono Trigger anniversary merch have also attracted similar enthusiastic comments like, “If there’s a remake I’ll definitely, definitely buy it!” In November, Japanese game news site Dengeki Online did a poll of games readers most wanted to see get the HD-2D treatment, and Chrono Trigger topped the list.
The situation is similar to that of Final Fantasy IX, with the game’s 25th anniversary celebrations this year also stoking fans’ hopes that Zidane and Garnet’s adventures are in line for the remake treatment, although in IX’s case the rumors were backed up by the infamous 2021 Nvidia leak, which showed that a FFIX remake was possibly on Square Enix’s to-do list at one point. However, it seems that for both games, the anniversary celebrations were simply a chance to revisit these classic games through events and new merch. Until an official announcement is made, all fans of both games can do is continue to express their enthusiasm for these classic RPGs to Square Enix.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass December 2025 lineup, which is headlined by NetherRealm’s gory fighting game Mortal Kombat 1.
Also coming to Game Pass in the coming weeks as day one launches are first-person sci-fi horror Routine and soulslike deck builder Death Howl.
Available today, December 2, is Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) across Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass. Tomorrow, December 3, sees Monster Train 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) and Spray Paint Simulator (Cloud, Console, and PC) both hit Game Pass Premium.
December 4 is a decent day for Game Pass, with 33 Immortals (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC) and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) both arrive on Game Pass Premium. The aforementioned Routine (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) launches day one on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass.
Moving on to December 9, A Game About Digging A Hole (Cloud, Handheld, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) arrives on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass, as does Dome Keeper (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC). Death Howl (Handheld & PC) is a day one Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass release, also on December 9.
Here’s a big one: Mortal Kombat 1 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) arrives on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass on December 10. A day later, on December 11, something that couldn’t be more different hits Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass: Bratz: Rhythm & Style (Cloud, Console, and PC).
Routine (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) – December 4, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
A Game About Digging A Hole (Cloud, Handheld, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Death Howl (Handheld & PC) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Dome Keeper (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Mortal Kombat 1 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 10, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Bratz: Rhythm & Style (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 11, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Microsoft’s post on Xbox Wire suggests this is the entire lineup for December 2025, but it only takes us to December 11. “We hope you have a chill rest of your December,” Microsoft said. “May your batteries be always charged, your sessions always end in GG’s, and you always have the perfect game queued up next. We’ll be back to talk about what’s coming soon in early 2026! Cheers!”
However, this leaves the door open to potential Game Pass shadowdrops, should next week’s The Game Awards have something up its sleeve.
As always a number of games leave Game Pass this month. You can save up to 20% off your purchase to keep them in your library.
Leaving Xbox Game Pass in December 2025:
December 15
Mortal Kombat 11 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Still Wakes the Deep (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wildfrost (Cloud, Console, and PC)
December 31
Carrion (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Hell Let Loose (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
GameStop has highlighted its recent payout of more than $30,000 for a rare Pokémon card as evidence that the chain’s trade-in program offers fair value — while simultaneously admitting the card had actually been worth at least $3,000 more.
In its latest publicity stunt aimed at getting gamers’ attention, GameStop issued a typically jocular statement on social media declaring its record $30,494.70 payout for a PSA 10 Holo Gengar was a “historic” moment for the company.
“Any trolls who publicly claim that GameStop trade-in values are bad are hereby factually and demonstrably incorrect,” the chain wrote. “Any prior and ongoing objections to our trade values are now deemed without merit and factually invalid,” it continued, while admitting the card had actually been worth $33,883 — several thousand dollars more.
To be fair to GameStop, the chain does not hide the fact it paid $3,388.30 less than what it describes as the “fair-market valuation” for the card. Indeed, the company simply states it handed over its payout “upon completion of all required inspection, verification, and compliance procedures” — processes, the statement appears to suggest, which come at some cost.
But many responses to GameStop’s social media post have pointed to the chain still having “shorted” the card’s owner, and suggesting the card would have reached a higher value at auction. Others have noted GameStop’s own trade-in FAQ page states that the chain has a $1,500 upper limit for trade-in value, something that suggests this particular sale is something of an anomaly. IGN has contacted GameStop for more.
In its post, GameStop states its payout was executed “in accordance with the established terms and conditions governing the Power Packs Buyback Program,” an offer that some customers have criticized for allowing the retailer to repeatedly make money from the same high-value cards.
An example of this would be a customer buying a $100 Power Pack (a blind box with a rough value of a $100) from GameStop and finding a card that is indeed worth $100 inside. If it’s a card they don’t want, GameStop offers an Instant Buyback offer that’s worth 90% of the card’s value minus an additional 6% commission fee. Here, the card seller gets $84.60 back, while GameStop retains a $100 card, which they can sell again for $100 — and continue to repeat the process.
“They’re not speculating on card value,” one fan wrote in a reddit thread on GameStop’s scheme posted a few months ago. “They control the supply, the pricing tier, and the resale loop. It’s vertical integration disguised as a loot box.
“PowerPacks aren’t just about cards. The real edge is the buyback loop. On average, GameStop pays less than market for returned cards, then sells them again at full price. Every cycle is a profit opportunity. It’s repeatable. Scalable. Efficient. And it doesn’t rely on retail footfall or console cycles. PowerPacks might end up being GameStop’s most profitable product yet.”
“Right now, we’re still thinking about what to make next,” Okamura said. “Since we created an opportunity (with MGS Delta) for new players to experience the Metal Gear series, I do want to continue with it.”
He continued: “It could be a remake, or we might challenge ourselves by creating a brand new game. The Metal Gear series is part of videogame history, spanning pixel art to cinematic presentation, and so each title requires a different approach to expressing and remaking it.
“We won’t apply the methodology used to make the recent MGS Delta to all other games in the series — rather we intend to find the best approach for each specific game.”
Okamura also touched on the amount of time it took for the team at Konami to be in a position to remake Metal Gear Solid 3. “Most of the original staff members had left and the team had been reorganized, however we gathered people together and finally arrived at the point where we could make MGS Delta. As a team, we are confident that we achieved a level of quality that not only preserves the appeal of the original but also that modern players could enjoy. We are currently working out concrete plans for what we are going to do next.”
However, when asked about the possibility of a Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots remake, Okamura remained cautious, saying: “the hardware back then required very specific designs to get the most out of the 3D technology that was available at the time, so MGS4 ended up with some pretty unique code. It seems like it would be quite a challenge to bring that into the present day.”
At the moment, 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4, which ties up all the loose ends in Solid Snake’s story, is only playable on PlayStation 3. Based on the original game release order and rumors, a remastered port of MGS4 is expected to be included in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, however Konami has yet to announce the official line-up for this second anthology of MGS games to be released on current gen platforms.
While Okamoto’s comments address a remake rather than a remaster, his thoughts on MGS4’s unique code may explain why it is taking Konami so long to release Volume 2. Okamura previously said that the team are taking their time on Volume 2 to avoid the performance issues that dogged Volume 1 at launch: “we’re going to do everything we can not to repeat that, but we just have to ask for everyone to give us time.”
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
A Fortnite artist has been forced to defend their work after fans suggested numerous images found within the game’s new season are AI-generated, including a suspicious-looking poster showing a character in a hammock with an odd number of toes.
Last night, freelance artist Sean Dove took to Instagram in response to fan claims that his Studio Ghibli-style depiction of Back to the Future hero Marty McFly was the product of AI generation. Dove, a frequent Fortnite collaborator, showed off his manual process for drawing the image. But while he drew the Ghibli-esque main character himself, Dove admitted he may still have inadvertantly included AI elements in the background.
“I guess someone on reddit thinks this was AI,” Dove wrote. “I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn’t paying attention.”
And while Dove has personally responded, Fortnite developer Epic Games has so far remained silent on the topic, as fans on reddit create numerous threads pointing out other examples of images they think show signs of AI generation. (IGN contacted Epic Games for this story, but did not receive a comment back.)
Most egregious, according to fans, is an in-game poster for a location named Mile High Retreat. The image shows a pair of legs sticking out from a hammock, with five toes visible on one foot and four visible on another.
Amid all the confusion, and lack of clarification from Epic Games itself, what’s clear is that Fortnite fans are keen to push back against the perception of AI art usage within the game. An enormous thread on reddit is tracking every example where players have doubts of images being made by human hands, and searching for more.
“Awful decision,” wrote one player. “I hope it gets amended. As others have said, the art and style of this damn game is one of the main reasons we love it. Generative AI has no place in it.”
“I thought things like Darth Vader were cool, using AI to achieve something that simply wouldn’t be possible without it,” another fan wrote. “But, that was the only case so far that I’ve genuinely found neat. Creating art is something humans, and especially Epic due to their money and resources, are very capable of doing.”
Epic Games is no stranger to AI technology, of course, having previously used generative speech technology to reproduce James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader portrayal. But despite having the rights and approval of Disney, the character’s inclusion proved controversial, especially as players quickly began making Vader say things more aligned with the dark side of the Force.
“It doesn’t matter any more,” he continued. “The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production.”
Speaking of AI artwork, boot up Fortnite anytime recently and you’ll be greeted by a menu screen with dozens, if not hundreds, of user-made experiences that use AI artwork for their thumbnails, something Epic Games has previously said it is pointless to police, as technology rapidly improves to the point where AI images become almost impossible to distinguish.
Indeed, if nothing else, the whole matter has simply highlighted the increasing difficulty in 2025 of being able to tell what is AI-generated, and what is not.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
The original director of Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell remake, David Grivel, has returned to recommence his role as director on the game after leaving Ubisoft in 2022.
“Today, I am very, very happy to announce that I’m rejoining Ubisoft Toronto as Game Director on the Splinter Cell Remake!” wrote Grivel, noting the team and project are very special to him.
Grivel previously worked at Ubisoft for just over a decade, from 2011 to 2022. Prior to his brief initial tenure as director on the Splinter Cell remake he contributed as a game designer on a variety of projects, including Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 4, and Far Cry 5.
Grivel rejoins Ubisoft after a stint at Ridgeline Games working on the campaign mode for Battlefield 6, until EA abruptly shuttered the studio in early 2024.
The Splinter Cell remake, which was first announced way back in late 2021, has been skulking around in the dark for many years now. Little information about the game has made its way into the light during that time, although we do know the story of the 2002 original is set to be updated to be “more authentic and believable” to a modern-day audience.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
Justin Lin is set to direct the upcoming film adaptation of Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lin is best known for his work on a number of Fast & Furious movies, and was the director of the series from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in 2006 until Fast & Furious 6 in 2013.
It won’t mark the first time Lin has set his sights on outer space, as he also directed Star Trek Beyond in 2016 – and later returned to the Fast & Furious series to direct 2021’s F9 (in which he sent Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson into literal orbit in a 1984 Pontiac Fiero).
The Helldivers movie has been written by Gary Dauberman, the writer of several Annabelle films and The Nun – as well as the co-writer of 2017’s It and the writer of its 2019 sequel, It Chapter Two.
Heavily inspired by Paul Verhoeven’s vision for 1997 sci-fi cult classic Starship Troopers, Helldivers 2 is “the rare modern multiplayer game that does almost everything right” by boasting a ton of freedom and a smart progression system that doesn’t nickel and dime players, according to IGN’s review.
After originally arriving on PlayStation 5 and PC, Helldivers 2 also came to Xbox Series X|S in August, 2025.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
It’s back, tabletop fans. Both Amazon and Target are running a “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” sale on board games, many of which are already individually discounted for Cyber Monday. And these deals are stackable, an elite-level deal-hunting move I always appreciate. Let’s take a look at what board games are eligible for the sale.
Buy 2, Get 1 Free at Amazon
The deals include a lot of standards that should be in most people’s game collection, like Ticket to Ride, Catan, and Azul. It’s also a great sale for parents looking to pick up family board games, as tons of classic games are on sale. Games like Scrabble, Operation, Mouse Trap, Guess Who, Twister, and the like are all represented here.
I’d especially recommend Flip 7, a simple card game that only takes a few minutes to teach newcomers, with matches that last just 15 – 20 minutes. That makes it great to whip out with a group of friends when you’re looking to kill some time. Check out our Flip 7 review for more information.
Flamecraft is an excellent strategy game with dragons (see our review here). The latest edition of Talisman brings a classic dungeon-crawler into modern times (review). And The Lord of The Rings Journeys in Middle-Earth Board Game made it on our list of the best fantasy board games.
Those are just a few of the games eligible for the Buy 2, Get 1 Free sale at Amazon. You can click through to the full sale here to see every game available. There are plenty. And remember, you can also check out the same sale at Target, where you may find a handful of different games available.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
I’ve been annoyingly busy lately, and haven’t had as much time as I would have liked to dive into World of Warcraft’s housing feature, which is now live in the World of Warcraft: Midnight beta. So even though I’ve now had multiple tours of its features and possibilities at this point, I was blown away when I poked my head into the community and saw this:
Come on. There’s no way we’re going to be able to make that! Well, okay, maybe no way I, a deeply mediocre interior decorator, will be able to make that.
Nevertheless, early testing for housing in WoW is proving to be quite the success. In fact, amid a lot of controversy around both add-on removal and transmog, it’s nice that there’s one new feature everyone’s just sort of unanimously positive about.
Still, there are still plenty of questions still up in the air about how housing will work once it gets into the full game, and what its long-term future is going to be. I sat down with Jesse Kurlancheek, housing lead and principal game designer, and Joanna Giannullis, senior UX designer, to pepper them with questions specifically about housing: how will it work, what features can we expect down the line, and what the future holds. Here’s our full interview below, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
IGN: So in the past we’ve sometimes seen Blizzard introduce new features and then drop them at the end of the expansion, like Pandaria’s Farms, and the Garrisons in Warlordsof Draenor. Can we be reassured that housing is going to continue to be supported with new content and added to with each new expansion?
Jesse Kurlancheek: I will reassure you as much as possible that that is the case. We have a short-term, medium-term, long-term list of features and content that we want to add. We talk about what are we doing in 12.0 and 12.1 and 12.2 and beyond pretty regularly. One of the things that’s most exciting about housing is that, if I ask you, “Hey, what are the three things you want most from housing?” Just rattle off, and I ask Jo[anna Giannullis] and I ask Aramis [the PR representative on the call] and I ask 10 players, I will get a dozen different answers ranging the gamut, but chances are 90, 95% of those things totally make sense in housing. It’s such a wide, open field that you can’t really say no to a lot of stuff, and because of that, it’s really exciting to add all of these things. And you can see a through line as we talk about stuff, we want players to have this area to express themselves, to be creative, to build sort of what they want, their ideal home in Azeroth.
But then we also say, “But we want you to be amongst other players. We want you to be with your friends or Guildies. We want to give you a space that is not just yours but is ours.” And then from there, where do people get excited? What sort of sparks your joy? What lights your eyes up? What do players do on day one, on month one that they want to keep doing, that they want to build on? So, we have our roadmap. We have the things that we think are really exciting. We have the things that we know players want. We know that, yeah, you want more content, you want more decor, you want more of this culture or that culture or this expansion stuff or that expansion stuff. You want to be able to have access to these types of features and we want more customization.
We want better quality of life. We want to be able to do things together that we can’t right now. But then, we have things that you don’t necessarily think about. When you say, oh, when we announced neighborhoods back in the spring, you’d see people sort of be like, “Oh, now that we have this sort of collaborative space, what does that mean for us?” And watching people have conversations about the what ifs with housing is very gratifying. Hopefully, that very long-winded answer reassures you that we’re thinking about things as not just a single feature release, that this is a very long-running thing.
You were talking about having a space for people to hang out in. So, I log in and I go do dungeons or whatever it is I do and I play, but there’s also sort of a home base that I tend to hang out in. And generally in the history of WoW, that’s always been a capital city, because there’s an auction house and a bank, and a bunch of other people there. And I’m wondering how you’re thinking about the tension between, do I want to hang out in my house where there’s no bank and no auction house, or do I want to hang out in a capital city? But if I don’t hang out in a capital city, is the capital city going to be empty? How are you kind of thinking about that?
Joanna Giannullis: I think we are expecting players to sort of settle into different types. We made sure that a lot of things that you go to the capital city for, that’s still where you have to go to do that. You got to go and visit your professions trainers, do your crafting orders, visit the bank, the auction house. A lot of those things are still going to be central in the city. You may still want to go there so you can see the Brutosaur parades or whatnot. There’s still going to be a lot there for you. But we also wanted the neighbors to be a space where you could be more social with your friends and your Guildies because that’s a little bit harder to do in those hub cities. So, we’re hoping that there’s a nice balance. We’re also not making you choose where to put your Hearthstone, we’re going to give you a hearth to your actual home so you’ll be able to quickly go to either location to do the things that you need to do while you’re waiting for raid or what have you.
Is there any thought to making there be practical benefits to being in the house though? I know you probably don’t want to put a bank there because then everyone would just sit in there all the time, but I wonder if there’s anything else? I saw this thing where tourist NPCs were coming by and taking pictures, which is really cute. I don’t know, could NPCs come visit? Could there be a reason to just sit there and hang out that’s practical and gameplay oriented?
Giannullis: Right now, we do have cooking stations in your house. There are a couple small things and I’m sure there’s things that will happen in the future, but there are some things that you might find more enjoyable to just do in your home or your plot or your neighborhood, and there’s a lot of reasons to keep returning to your neighborhood. We’ve got endeavors coming up with the launch Midnight and that’s something that you’re going to be participating in, but then those are also going to send you back out into the world. So, there should be a lot of give and take there.
Kurlancheek: We do a fairly hard line on sort of the player power aspect of stuff not coming into housing. You should never feel that, “I have to go engage in a housing loop because if I don’t, I can’t attune to a raid, or I won’t have a 3% DPS boost or whatever.” So, that sort of practical stuff is really not on the table. What you mentioned about NPCs coming by and doing cutesy, neighborly, things like that, I think is very much a part of housing. Feeling like this little part of the world that is yours and your friends is alive is important. Seeing the NPCs put the little umbrellas up when it starts raining, seeing them sort of queue up for the shops and things like that really just gives a life and a vibrancy to this place. But it’s not practical, right? It’s all just vibes, man.
Is there any thought to eventually doing something where two people could have possession of a house together or you could give other people permission to decorate your house? I feel like there’s a budding scene of potential interior decorator professions that could spring up around this.
Kurlancheek: Yeah, one comes up a lot is, “I’m not especially creative or I’m not great with a tool set. Can my friend come over and sort of deck out my apartment or deck out my house?” Yeah, it’s certainly on our radar.
Was there anything that you had to leave on the cutting room floor for this initial launch that you really wish you could have gotten in? And are you willing to say what it is?
Giannullis: So much. So much. I mean, one of the things that’s known is we were able to get the outdoor rooms in for the testing, but those won’t be available to players until we actually launch Midnight, just due to some technical reasons, but we were really excited to get them out. We’re glad we got them out early so players could give feedback and test them and see what they like about him. But there’s some things like that.
Kurlancheek: There’s exterior lighting we had to disable during alpha or beta, I can’t remember what, just because of the performance impacts. If everybody in your sight line put 100 lights on their lawn, that was going to cause a problem. So, we had to disable those. We’re going to fix it up, get them working post-launch, post Midnight launch. Yeah, I think there’ve been a number of things that sort of people held near and dear to their hearts that we had to just not cut, but just be like, “That’s going to wait a little bit and then we’ll get to it.”
In the future, there might be more to types of neighborhoods, right? We have an Alliance and a Horde neighborhood look and then there’s set places in those, but are you thinking about other environments you might want to do down the line?
Kurlancheek: Yeah, I think there’s, letting players make a space that they vibe with. I’m sorry, I say vibe a lot with housing.
It’s very vibes-based.
Kurlancheek: It’s very vibes-based. But getting players a space that they feel like they can make theirs is really important. In designing the neighborhoods, we are very intentional about trying to hit a very broad spectrum of, here are players, here are houses that are for very hermit players, that they don’t want to live next to anybody. Here are houses that are in a little cute cul-de-sac, so there’s 2, 3, 4 houses that a small group of friends can live in. Here’s houses on the ocean, here’s houses in the woods, here’s houses sort of in all of these aspects. But that’s not going to necessarily hit everybody’s thing, and so figuring out what the large missing pieces there are is part of the early post-release sort of conversation.
Giannullis: Another thing to add to that, something that we’ve made an effort is going out and looking in the world, especially even in old content and finding decor or foliage, things that we could add as props and decor so that the players can make their space into what they want. So, if they’ve always loved a specific zone in the game, great, let’s add some of those trees and some of those flowers as decor that they can buy and then put in their yard. And that’s something that we’re working really hard, I think, to get a variety of decor that feels like every little part of the game has its place, and you can go back to old content and get those things and then you can put them in your house.
Going back into old content and finding things, from each of you, what is the most surprising or weird or favorite thing that you found that you’re like, “Oh, I have to put that in housing.”
Kurlancheek: So, there’s literally a spreadsheet or a form that people can fill out for, “Oh, this thing was something we should add.” It’s a little bit unfair being me because I can sort of nudge things a little bit harder to go in and say, “Hey, Jay,” Jay’s the decor lead. I’m like, “Can you add this for me? Literally just for me. I don’t know if anyone else cares about it, but I would like it.” And he’ll be like, “Yeah, fine, that’s fine.”
I think the more interesting thing has been, this is a massive game, right, and seeing players pull up props that have long been forgotten about. They’re like, “That was a cool prop. We should get that in.” Someone posted this, it was a shark, it was a new asset. So, probably from Battle for Azeroth if I had to guess. But it was a shark that had been caught, but that was maybe still alive, I’m not quite sure. But it was a very nice, they wanted to make a fishing village on their lawn. And I was like, “That’s great.” And so, having people post what they’re looking for is really useful for us because stuff like that shows up and we’re like, “That is a great asset.”
Giannullis: We also have had a lot of, this is oddly internal too. This is, everybody really wants goblin items and then trash items. Those get requested a lot. It’s really fun. Yeah, people love them and one of the ones I think we added was the Johnny Trash pile. So, if you get the achievement with him back in Battle for Azeroth, and it’s so funny, it’s like who wants that? But as soon as you see it, you want it. You are like, “I have to have that. I don’t know what for, but I know I need that.” And it’s so fun to see people get excited about those sort of sort of decor.
Kurlancheek: String lights. Everybody loves the string lights.
Would you ever consider making certain housing items super rare or super secretive? I’m thinking about a decoration equivalent of the Time-Lost Proto-Drake or something that’s the reward at the end of a secret quest, like the Hivemind or something?
Kurlancheek: Let’s see how I’m going to answer this. So, there’s the catalog that shows you all the items in the game, all the decor in the game. There’s a flag we can say to hide items until you’ve earned them. So, yeah, that.
Would you ever lock anything behind world first or make something fairly exclusive?
Kurlancheek: I think depends on your definition of fairly. So, meta achievements for expansions are pretty exclusive. And so, we have decor for meta achievements. I think where it’s maybe require more conversation of stuff that’s time limited. We try to generally err away from things that if, you’re like, “Oh, I just need this green placard or whatever, but it was only available for some weird event or something,” that kind of feels bad.
Giannullis: We’ve also, we talked a while back about what sort of decor would we reward for something like PvP, because we’d like to have, and this is no secret, you can get housing decor from everything in game. If there’s a way you can earn something in game, we’re going to let you get housing decor that way. So, we wanted to do something for PvP and it was like, okay, well if we do this and then other people that don’t PvP want it, is that going to feel bad? And so, the concept of trophies came up and you can see some of that early stuff is showing up on the beta. So, I think there’s been real conscious effort to make sure that if it’s something that you can get from something very exclusive, it’s not something that we expect everybody to want to have a ton of in their house or it’s something that you can get a version of another way. But if you see that specific version, you know they did something awesome to get it. It’s a balance there.
There’s been real conscious effort to make sure that if it’s something that’s very exclusive, it’s not something that we expect everybody to want to have a ton of.
When I log in on December 2nd and I have access to this feature, I’m just immediately going to have a bunch of decor already, right? Because I have achievements that exist, I have things that I have done before, so I should just have a bunch of stuff?
Kurlancheek: You will, if you’ve been playing hard for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you will potentially log into 150, 200 things that you will just get spammed with and showered with and be able to be like, “Oh yeah, I remember when I did that quest in MoP or something and it gave me whatever it gave me.” And the meta achievements kick in and you start with this very eclectic mix.
I’m sure whatever I have is totally mismatched and makes no sense.
Giannullis: Well, we also start you with the starter packs, which have some more streamlined modern items. Yeah. So, you’ll have a mix of some wild stuff and then some, okay, at least I have a bed and a chair. So, we’re going to start you with a good mix of things, I think.
Are you looking into any eventual copy-paste functionality or the ability to save custom item combinations? I know that’s something a lot of people have been asking about.
Giannullis: A lot of people have asked about that. Definitely copy-paste. Being able, once you get something just right in advanced mode, not having to do it all over again. We’re definitely keeping an eye on everything that people are asking for. There’s a lot of things that people want. There’s a lot of things we want to do, so it’s just trying to decide what’s going to help players the most.
Yeah, I mean the next question is basically the same one about export strings. If people want to decorate a house, show people and then have someone else copy it if they have those items.
Kurlancheek: Yeah, I think when we talk about any feature that’s sort of in housing, it’s what is sort of maximally useful across that spectrum of different players. And so, when you talk about something like importing or exporting strings of stuff, that helps the interior designer type player who wants to sort of provide services. It helps the players that are not necessarily super creative, right, are not really jazzed about the mechanical side of decorating. They have a vision but don’t want use the tool set.
It helps the players that they like to browse. You just sort of, I have a room for this and room for that, a room for this and a room for that. And also, I think maybe the most compelling part about it is it helps players have a sense of ownership where you might not already. So, if you’re a great decorator and I’m a less good decorator, and you make your little pirate cave and like a great pirate cave, “I’m going to take that pirate cave, but I don’t like that she doesn’t have sharks in the water,” or whatever. And then, I throw a bunch of sharks in the water. Now that’s sort of mine in a way that remixing of content in general is sort of a part of the internet. Being able to do that in game is also really valuable.
How are you thinking about things like housing contests and stuff like that? I don’t know. I think about Race to World First and how that’s a tune-in event, and I feel like I would watch an interior decorating show.
Giannullis: The thing is we’ve already seen a bunch of creators pop up that are like, “I’m a housing creator, this is what I’m doing.” And they’re starting to run their own challenges and contests, and so that’s really exciting to see. I think we’re all kind of watching that to see what sort of activities the players are getting up to.
Kurlancheek: Yeah, and how we can sort of build tools to support whatever that sort of shenanigans of being, right? A Trial of Style kind of thing. What do players need to be able to do that? What sort of functionality makes sense to better enable that?
Giannullis: I remember talking about how many people you can even have in your house at a time, and it was something that we were working really hard to make sure we could get that to a good place because we know people want to have parties, they want to do all these different things and we’re trying to make sure that what we’re building is supporting that and can handle that.
Is there a limit to how many people can come into your house at a time?
Kurlancheek: There is, there is. We’re still figuring out where the line is. We do our stress testing and throw a ton of bots into a very decorated house. What happens? In the neighborhoods, regardless of what the solution or whatever the number is there, everybody who lives in the neighborhood can come into the neighborhood. So, if there’s 55 players and the max number of players is 100, say, then we reserve those 55 lots or 55 places for people that live there. So, you can always come into your house.
So I know we can decorate the exteriors of our houses. Is there any thought to stuff like, okay, my guild has our neighborhood together. We can collectively decorate the parts of the outside that are not attached to a house. Can we build a little community center?
Kurlancheek: Yes. The idea of us building together is super compelling, I think. As soon as players can build something themselves, we want to build things together. And so, what that ends up being depends on what people are trying to do or what is interesting for them. If it is just us coming together in the town square and hanging up balloons or whatever, because we’re having a birthday party, what does that look like? Versus we want to build a racetrack for our mounts around the outside of a town and what does that look like? Versus we want to do prop hunts and dueling things and all of these different potential pieces of stuff. What’s juicy?
It feels really wild to talk about it. It feels like we’re almost discussing a completely different game than WoW, like a game within a game. I could very easily just do this all the time and then my raid team would wonder why I’m not there.
Kurlancheek: That’s an actual problem, by the way, that there are people that are finding housing really compelling and be like, “I don’t know if I can make it to a raid tonight. I’m busy with my house.”
I don’t know that that’s a problem you even need to solve, but you were talking about having creators that just want to do housing. And I don’t know, has that changed the team’s perspective on how they approach this? Has that changed the perspective of the holistic design of the game?
Giannullis: I think we’ve already always started wanting to make sure that we were kind of in it for the long haul. This is a feature that we know is going to live in the game for some time to come, and we’re going to be adding more to it with every, not just every patch, but in future expansions and we want to keep growing it. And so, when you say like, “Oh, well what about all these things we got?” It’s like, yeah, over time, yeah, let’s do it. Tell us what you want and let’s see what we can do.
The idea of us building together is super compelling, I think. As soon as players can build something themselves, we want to build things together.
This is how we eventually get the dance hall. This is the way.
Kurlancheek:
Oh, dance hall is, that’s a real low hanging fruit. People are going to toss that together right quick.
I’m sure they already have.
What is the biggest piece of feedback you’re seeing from players right now and what do you plan to do to address it?
Kurlancheek: I’m going to reframe that to critical feedback because the biggest piece of feedback is just, “We want, give us more decor, give us more features, give us more of this, that and the other thing.” I think one of the things that gets talked about most frequently is outdoor decor limits are too low. People want to be able to build more stuff outside their house. We’re trying. We’re going to see where things land and sort of, we want players to be as creative as they want to be. And placing restrictions on folks is never the goal in any of our sort of guiding principles.
Giannullis: I know a lot of players are giving feedback about bits and pieces of the UI and the UX for the actual act of decorating, and there’s not a strong one. There’s a lot of things and things that we know will help players decorate. I think we’re just trying to keep all of those in mind. We’re keeping accessibility in mind a lot as well. We know that there’s some things that might work for one player but not another. So, we’re just keeping in our eyes open to what we’re seeing and trying to make sure that’s all stuff that we’ll be able to address in the future.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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