If players wish to change their gender in World of Warcraft, they would have to purchase the $15 USD Appearance Change from the Blizzard store. With World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, Blizzard will be dropping this fee entirely.
Executive producer John Hight spoke to Eurogamer and explained the decision and how players will now be able to change their gender at a barber shop for free in Shadowlands.
“A long time ago, we had the ability for players to go in – it was actually a paid service – and change their character. Much of that is now in the barber shop in the game,” Hight said. “And as we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realised, ‘Gosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service.’ And we felt like that’s not the right message.”
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/07/08/world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-developer-update”]
“Unfortunately we can’t fix that right now but it is our intent with Shadowlands to take that out of being a paid service thing and [put it] in the barber shop. But that’s not something we can easily hotfix – unfortunately we can’t do that right now. It is something that we’re going to have in Shadowlands itself.”
Hight gave this answer after talking about the new Shadowlands NPC named Pelagos, who many believe to be the first trans character in the game. Pelagos is part of the Kyrian covenant, which players can join in Shadowlands, and will be a key part of the story.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is set to be released later in 2020 and a Beta is set to begin next week. This new expansion, which is World of Warcraft’s eighth, will take place in Warcraft’s version of the afterlife. It has five new zones, an “ever-changing dungeon” called the Tower of the Damned, and much more.
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-gameplay-reveal-images&captions=true”]
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
Source: IGN.com World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Will Drop Gender Change Fee