WoW devs plan to edit more in-game art, quests and names to be more “inclusive”

The World of Warcraft developers have outlined plans to edit a lot more in-game quests and names in future updates and fans are not impressed.

Blizzard’s goal of creating a more “inclusive” environment for gamers began amid a major lawsuit against the company alleging a toxic work environment. Since then, the gaming juggernaut has removed real-world references from many of its games, including the yet-to-be-released Overwatch 2. While prior updates have “desexualized” paintings, much to the displeasure of many in the community (such as Twitch streamer Asmongold), Blizzard is showing no signs of stopping.

WoW devs defend censoring art and editing quests

In a September 30 blog post, the devs commented on the changes saying, “these updates are a relatively small part of a comprehensive, company-wide effort to improve the WoW team and Blizzard as a whole, but they’re important to us as developers.”

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“In early August, we set up internal channels where the WoW team could share feedback on content that doesn’t represent who we are as a team today,” they added. “The player feedback influenced many gameplay improvements we’re working on for patch 9.1.5, and our internal feedback identified some in-game content that is inconsistent with our goal of building an inclusive and welcoming game world.” This said, the devs also claimed that some inside jokes and references may still be allowed: “Goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be. Still, we want to remain mindful of whether certain elements of that world are welcoming to all players. In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not punch down.”

Fans are not happy with the WoW updates

Sadly, some innuendos, such as the NPC “master baiter” have been renamed, causing some blowback from the community.

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“I still don’t get why you changed Master Baiter,” wrote one fan. “I mean I get it, but I don’t.” “Please stop this. Like getting rid of the NPCs of real people who were the problem is one thing, but game is rated T, we all live in the world with much worse stuff than this,” another blasted. “I just hope there is a limit to this. Are you going to get rid of violence altogether because violence IRL is bad? Where does it end?”

Others wrote in the comments that they were planning on quitting WoW all together while the only positive comments seemed to be in the form of more customizable options and make the incubus a glyphable option for Warlocks. Given the popularity of new MMOs such as New World, this could be the straw that broke WoW’s back for those players opposed to what they feel amounts to censorship.