It looks like Blizzard is testing the waters for World of Warcraft to become playable on controller. One of the longstanding MMORPG's producers is currently doing some research on whether players would enjoy as much, letting users have their say.
In a questions-and-answers session with Azeroth-centric outlet Wowhead, Holly Longdale, executive producer and vice president on World of Warcraft, proposes the question to the live Discord chat. "How many players would be interested in experiencing the game on a controller with a fully dedicated UI?" she asks, prompting a variety of responses and concerns.
For her, she sees the value in catering to as many players as possible, since her taste in games is broad. But there are a lot of considerations here, because World of Warcraft is built very specifically for mouse and keyboard and PC architecture. The consensus in the immediate aftermath skews negative on Reddit.
"We fear that the PC experience will get worse because they are trying to accommodate console users," one player comments. "For example removing add-on functionality, customizability, dumbing down classes, removing gameplay depth and complexity, etc."
This is the underlying anxiety, and as I'm sure you know, the fans often tend to be pretty critical of Blizzard's decision-making without other platforms being on the docket. "No game has become better when a PC game has to cater to a console game," another Redditor states.
There's a feeling that it might become reality sooner rather than later, though, especially in light of Microsoft now owning Activision Blizzard. Pushing towards whatever the next generation of Xbox devices is is a sound plan for goading people into dropping their hard earned cash.
"WoW port for the new Xbox/PC hybrid console thingy seems fairly inevitable," the top comment reads. "WoW will come to consoles at some point, won't it? It's just too much for MS to pass on," says another. Whatever the future holds, a joypad will probably be involved, for good or ill.
