World of Warcraft player housing hits early access this December, but only for Midnight expansion pre-orderers

Customisable player houses are finally set to arrive in World of Warcraft via early access this December, though that early access will be limited to folks who’ve pre-purchased the MMO’s upcoming Midnight expansion. There can never not be a bit of a catch with moving into new digs it seems, even if you’re a virtual orc.

The forthcoming addition of home ownership to WOW was first announced by Blizzard all the way back in November last year at a Warcraft 30th anniversary direct, with the studio finally acting on player cries to inject their adventures with a bit more rearranging of clutter around a place in which you sleep. Let us be paralysed by the mundane terror of picking the right interior decor, they screamed. K, said Blizzard.

That terror will debut in early access on December 2nd, the developers announced in a fresh deep-dive covering the upcoming Midnight expansion. However, the early access’ll be limited to those who pre-purchase the expansion, which is currently full release dateless, but expected to arrive in early 2026.

It’d have been nice to see Blizzard not tie getting to try out the housing to a pre-order, given how rightly averse to paying for games in that way a lot of folks, including us at RPS, are. On the other hand, you could argue that charging for a feature hallmarked to arrive as part of a paid expansion is fair game, even if it’s far from the most consumer-friendly a studio could be.

There is a preview feature currently running on World of Warcraft’s website which lets you click around some pre-built houses free of charge to get an idea of the kind of thing you’ll be able to build. It’s also worth noting that not all of housing’s features will be at your disposal in the early access version, with some being saved for Midnight’s full launch.

As for what you can do in terms of customising your crib, decor can be acquired from adventures, bought, or crafted by chopping down trees for lumber. The likes of rugs and curtains can be dyed different colours, while a bunch of different room shapes can be pieced or stacked together however you like to house all of your clutter, which you can move around, re-orient and re-size to your heart’s content. House exteriors can also be customised in a similar fashion.

As of Midnight’s full launch, you’ll be able to pick from different starting architectural themes aimed at humans, orcs, blood elves, and night elves, as well as surrounding biome plots with different landscapes and atmospheres. There are neighbourhood hubs that’ll host challenges among houses within them, and there’s a house levelling system that unlocks more customisation options the higher you go.

The rest of this Midnight deep-dive offered info on the Midnight expansion’s main questline, which is all about a lady named Xal’atath launching an invasion of Azeroth, as well as teases for other features like an interface improvement called “death recap”, which sounds fun.