World of Warcraft veteran says to expect “difficulty spikes” in his new MMO: “RPGs are better when they are a little difficult, and I think that goes doubly true for MMOs”

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Ghost can't come soon enough

Concept art showing flowing mountains in an upcoming MMO codenamed Ghost
(Image credit: Fantastic Pixel Castle)

World of Warcraft veteran Greg Street says you can expect his upcoming MMO – currently codenamed Ghost – to have "difficulty spikes even in the open world." 

Street has taken to Twitter to muse over how difficult an MMO should be to strike the right balance. Spoilers: he's a fan of something that offers a bit of challenge. 

Street goes on to recall his time working on World of Warcraft. For the veteran developer, the Dungeon Finder tool introduced in Wrath of the Lich King that lets you party up with others was released "at a time when running heroics was already pretty trivial." 

While Blizzard would try and "reverse course" by making dungeons in the next expansion, Cataclysm, more challenging, fans of the MMO only ended up switched off.

"This was an abrupt shock to a lot of the community who was used to the easier dungeon model and dungeon participation declined dramatically," he says. "I still think the goal was a good one, but the change was confusing for players."

We haven't seen much of Ghost at the time of writing, though the team of Blizzard and Riot Games veterans has been open about their design philosophy from the word go. Street doesn't want Ghost to give you FOMO, whereas the class system is more, you guessed it, World of Warcraft than Final Fantasy 14. Don't fret, though – the team wants Ghost to fit into your life all the same.

Can't wait for Ghost? Here are the 10 best MMORPGs to play in 2023.

Iain Harris
Iain Harris
News Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.