Player Housing Overview

Housing is a long-awaited feature in World of Warcraft, and it’s finally making its way into the game with the 11th expansion, Midnight! Players will finally have a place to call home in Azeroth, complete with decorations to collect and new rewards to earn. This system is designed to be evergreen, so it will continue to be relevant and receive new content as the game progresses through future patches and expansions.

Here’s the original teaser video from WoW’s 25th Anniversary stream:

Zones

Player housing will exist in new zones that will be added specifically to accommodate this feature. At the launch of player housing, there will be two housing zones: one for Alliance and one for Horde. There may be more housing zones added in the future.

The Alliance housing zone will be inspired by Elwynn Forest, with a little bit of Westfall and Duskwood in the mix.

The Horde housing zone will be inspired by Durotar and Azshara.

Neighborhoods

Within each housing zone you will find instanced neighborhoods where players can live side by side. Each neighborhood will have about 50 plots that can be claimed by individual players. These instances will be persistent and can be public or private.

Public neighborhoods are created by the game as a default for players who don’t join a private community.

Private neighborhoods can be created by players to share space with guilds, friends, or communities.

Neighborhoods have their own progression system and rewards, and can be customized by the players who live there. We don’t know the details of these systems yet, but it seems that the players who share a neighborhood will share progress in some way. No doubt there will be at least a few HOAs formed to try to maximize this feature!

In the concept art below, you can see that each plot is a little different, with different surroundings and views. It remains to be seen whether the plot’s location will affect the house’s interior at all or if it’s merely a matter of curb appeal.

Houses

Every player will be able to get a house, and houses are permanent, so you won’t lose yours if you don’t play the game or your subscription expires. Housing is planned to be a feature that some players may dabble in while others can commit a lot more time to it.

Houses are shared across your Warband, and even across factions, so your Alliance house will be accessible to your Horde characters and vice-versa. Rewards will also be shared, so you can freely use your collected decorations regardless of which character you earn or use them on.

There are no faction restrictions when it comes to visiting other players’ houses. Your house is intended to be something you can share with your friends as well as enjoying it solo.

In the neighborhood concept art, it looks like there will be different sizes of houses. It’s likely that you’ll start out with a small house that you can then add onto, similar to how garrisons work. The outside of your house and the inside will not be connected, so you can have the exterior look however you like without it affecting the interior, and vice-versa.

Layouts

There will be different options for your home’s interior layout, including different shapes as well as numbers of rooms and floors. In some of the development previews we have seen a number in the upper right corner of the decorating UI that seems to be a capacity limit. So far it’s unclear whether the layouts will all be pre-defined or whether you will be able to customize the placement of walls, floors, and ceilings.

Decorating

You will be able to customize your house extensively with collectible decor. Decor will be obtainable from many in-game sources as well as the cash shop, just like other Collections items such as mounts, pets, toys, and cosmetics.

There will be decor themed for the various cultures of Azeroth as well as the game’s many expansions. Below are a couple of pieces of concept art showing two different styles, indicating that we can expect to see entire sets of decor that are designed to go together. Among the items you can see furniture, rugs, and light fixtures. In the concept art as well as the teaser video, it looks as though you may be able to display weapons, shields, and possibly other items from your Collections such as pets.

The decorating interface is still in development and subject to change, but currently it features a five different modes:

• Basic Mode allows you to place decorations and snap them into position.
• Adavanced Mode allows you fine-tune your decorations, including rotation, scale, and positioning.
• Customize Mode allows you to change the color or appearance of certain items.
• Cleanup Mode has not been seen in action yet, only its icon in the UI.
• We don’t know the name of the fifth icon, but it allows you to view your home from a top-down perspective, like the picture in the Layouts section above.

Some smaller items can be placed on larger items, which an act as a “parent” object, allowing them to be moved around the room together. For example, a bookcase with books on it, or a table that has been set for a meal.

Existing “legacy” decorations may not have many customization options, but new items that are being added specifically for houses will. For example, on one of the new beds, you’ll be able to select the color of the wood, the color of the metal, and two different colors for the bedding.

We’ve also seen that there are currently 6 categories for objects in the decorating interface:

• A table and chair icon, likely for standard furniture items
• An icon showing a painting, probably for wall decorations
• An icon showing bricks being laid, possibly for selecting walls, floor, and ceiling
• A candelabra icon, which may indicate items that specifically cast light
• A flower pot, probably for smaller decor items
• A sixth icon that is a little bit harder to make out, but seems to indicate some sort of effects

Below you can see a few examples of decorated rooms showing some of the new decor objects and ways that they can be placed.

When is Player Housing Coming to World of Warcraft?

Player housing was announced as part of the Midnight expansion. However, there is a a mysterious house symbol that appears on the 2025 roadmap around the end of the year, before the expansion launches. So it’s possible we may see this feature added as part of the expansion pre-patch or even a bit sooner!