After nearly twenty years, World of Warcraft will finally allow players to create cross-faction guilds, regardless of whether you’re Horde or Alliance, for the first time in the game’s history.
World of Warcraft has a long, storied history in the gaming space. From being at the forefront of the MMO space to getting its own South Park episode, WoW has been a hot topic of popular culture—and a major part of thousands of players’ lives—for nearly two decades since originally launching in 2004.
Across that time, World of Warcraft has seen several updates and expansions, allowing players to jump into more and more content. While the choice between Horde and Alliance has always been hotly debated, especially between friends planning on raiding together, part of that choice has become a lot easier as part of the Embers of Neltharion update of the Dragonflight expansion.
In an interview with GameSpot, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas said, “We see this as a conservative step in the same vein as cross-faction instances. This is still opt-in. We want to make sure the focus is not on tearing down Alliance and Horde as entities in Warcraft or making complete unity the default experience but making sure players who have real life or other out-of-game bonds with folks on the opposite faction can play with them and experience WoW together because, at the end of the day, that’s the prime value here.”
“There’s a lot more technical and logistical challenges to solve in terms of the outdoor world,” Hazzikostas said. “Quests that are single faction, lots and lots and lots of stuff that was built with the assumption that you would never have Alliance and Horde together in a group. But it’s something that there’s value in exploring, the same way we have with instances and guilds.”
While not all content will be able to be accessed as a group between Horde and Alliance players, this is a huge step for a player base that has been wanting more crossover for years.
