World of Warcraft has historically charged players to change their avatar’s gender, but that is set to change with the new expansion. Right now, it costs $15 to change your character’s gender, but Shadowlands will remove this charge entirely.
In an interview with Eurogamer, executive producer John Hight has talked about this mechanic, and promised that in the future you will be able to change your gender along with your appearance at the barber shop. “As we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realised, ‘Gosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service,'” he says. “And we felt like that’s not the right message.”
This change will not arrive until the next expansion does, as it’s difficult to implement. “That’s not something we can easily hotfix – unfortunately we can’t do that right now,” Hight explains.
It’s not clear if this feature will be added for all players, including those who don’t buy the expansion, with the Shadowlands update–but hopefully this will be the case.
This answer came from a question Eurogamer posed about Pelagos, a character discussed in a July 2 Blizzard forums post who many believe is Blizzard’s first transgender character. According to Hight, it’s likely that other characters designed in-house at Blizzard are trans, even if it is not explicitly stated in-game: “knowing some of our designers and having conversations with them, I’m sure that was the intent.”
Here are some more insights from GameSpot’s own interviews with World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas.
- World Of Warcraft Is Getting Controller Support With Shadowlands, But Don’t Expect A Console Port
- Why World Of Warcraft Is Making Such A Big Change To Starting Zones With Shadowlands
- WoW Game Director On Releasing Shadowlands During COVID-19 And Working From Home
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