In the wake of a number of rumors and datamine leaks of Shadowlands that seem to point towards a console port of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has come forward to explain the current situation happenning behind the scenes. With an reply on the World of Warcraft forum to a fan’s question, Blizzard has confirmed that the company has been working on controller support for the game, reducing the need for mods.
This new information comes from Randy “Kaivax” Jordan, the Community Manager for World of Warcraft’s, as he replied to fans who were sharing the datamined findings that suggested controller support might be coming to the game. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this is a hint at ports or anything else expanding beyond the upcoming Shadowlands expansion.
Kaivax specifically mentions in the post that Blizzard has been looking at how some players have been utilizing modded tools, such as ControlPort in order to bring controller support to World of Warcraft on their own. It would seem that the amount of players using these tools is fairly small, but not insignificant enough to not catch Blizzard’s attention. So as a way to make the game more accessible to as many players as possible, which is why the development team is currently working on adding controller support with the Shadowlands expansion.
The exact wording in Kaivax’s post, however, does seem to suggest that the inclusion of gamepad or controller support, while compatible with PS4 and Xbox One controllers, isn’t a stepping stone towards a new port of World of Warcraft. Instead, the focus seems to be on giving devices like the increasingly accessible Xbox Adaptive Controller the ability to control the camera, player movement, and even keybindings. So, while Blizzard’s epic MMORPG isn’t necessarily coming to consoles at the moment, more people are going to be able to come to World of Warcraft in general thanks to these accessibility features.
It’s unfortunate that World of Warcraft won’t be coming to consoles anytime soon, even though there is likely a market for it, especially on next-gen platforms like the PS5 and Xbox Series X. However, it is always good news to see game developers looking at how they can make their games more accessible and allow everyone to join in on the fun. Meaning, as Shadowlands drops, it may introduce a whole new subset of gamers to some of the best areas from World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is available now for PC.
Source: World of Warcraft Forum
