Something which has been a nearly constant subject of controversy ever since the game was released on November 23, 2004 is the question of cross-faction guilds in World of Warcraft. While some players have been advocating for mixed memberships of Alliance and Horde characters from the very beginning, other players have come down firmly against the idea, preferring to keep things how they are. According to Production Director on World of Warcraft Pat Dawson, the studio behind the game, Blizzard, has been carefully considering such a system going forward.

The news comes from a recent interview by PCGamesN with Dawson. The developer described how cross-faction gameplay was introduced back in June, 2022 as part of a patch for Shadowlands, explaining that such a system could be implemented for guilds at some point in the near future.

RELATED: WoW's Valor Point System Needs A Major Overhaul

“Make frenemies of your enemies when you party with players from the opposing faction,” the official announcement concerning cross-faction gameplay in Shadowlands remarked. “Players will have the ability to find premade groups in the group finder for dungeons, raids, rated arena or battlegrounds, and also Torghast.” This went on to explain that “once in a party, members of the opposite faction will remain unfriendly while outside of instances, though they will be able to communicate through party and raid chat as well as use ‘say’ and ‘yell’ within proximity of one another.”

“Upon entering a dungeon, raid, or rated player-versus-player match however, all members will be friendly and able to assist each other in combat, trade loot, earn shared achievements, and otherwise fully engage the same way members of the same faction do,” the official announcement pointed out. When it came to guilds, these would “remain single faction and random matchmade activities like heroic dungeons, skirmishes, or random Battlegrounds will all remain same faction.”

Dawson on the other hand considers that cross-faction guilds have “been a hotly requested feature,” noting how “it’s something that we are certainly considering.” The developer went on to say that Blizzard has “nothing to announce on that” for the moment, but explained how “I think that as the system evolves, you’re seeing incremental changes being made over time. First was the cross-faction raiding, then cross-faction instances. The next iteration which just changed with the release of Dragonflight is cross-faction tapping, so that’s part two.”

wow ruby life pools boss

“Then we’ll see what’s next and what’s next after that and eventually move toward a world where we’re looking to do something like that in the future,” Dawson said in reference to cross-faction guilds. “But in terms of timeline, there’s nothing I can share.”

NEXT: I Hope Spider-Man 2's Collectibles Are More Interesting