Blizzard EntertainmentThe Goblin trade hub of Undermine is set to take center stage in the titular update for Patch 11.1 in World of Warcraft: The War Within. It promises to give us a better look at the Goblins than ever before, but it’s also crucial to the expansion as a whole.
The War Within’s opening salvo largely takes place underground, as players were introduced to several entirely enclosed zones to explore. The occasional disapproval of zones like this in the past allowed the developer to make some much-needed adjustments to their approach.
This resulted in one of the most spectacular zones in the game’s history in Hallowfall, as well as other highly memorable areas surprisingly packed with life. This makes Undermine relatively logical as a next step, but there are still some areas where it might feel like a departure from the previous themes.
We spoke to Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Lead Game Designer Maria Hamilton about bringing Undermine to life and the key role it’s going to play in the expansion as a whole.
Goblins, gold and great machines
Blizzard EntertainmentSo the big question is, why Undermine? As Hazzikostas explains, it simply came down to a case of where did it make the most sense for players to go next.
“So when we knew that we were going to do an underground expansion as the main setting for The War Within, one of the first questions is ‘what are some known places that are underground that this could make sense to visit?’ And Undermine was basically at the top of that list.”
“I think we knew that one way or another before The War Within was all done, we were going to have to at least spend some time in Undermine exploring the culture.”
“[There are] a lot of unanswered questions around Gallywix; he’s been up here since we last saw him, and then as we crafted the overall narrative, the next step was figuring out exactly how to execute it.”
Hamilton expands on this, explaining that the Goblin prowess with repairs made them prime candidates to work on the Dark Heart, a void artifact that takes center stage in The War Within.
“It was really a nice situation that we wanted to go to a place where the story was taking us anyway. With how the mainline story was moving in The War Within, We knew that repairs would be needed for the Dark Heart and the people that could make those repairs made sense to be Goblins.”
“It was really great to then be able to sit down and think about what a Goblin City would be? As zone building goes, it was really a fun one.”
With a lot to explore, you’ll be able to jump into the Undermine(d) content update when it hits live servers on February 25. Season Two is releasing a week later on March 4.
