‘There’s Fun In Not Knowing Exactly What’s Going to Happen’ WoW Developers On Dungeons and Raids In a Post-Addonpocalypse World

The highly anticipated expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight, is launching soon! It will be available to all players on March 2nd, but those who purchased the Epic Edition will get to start playing early on February 26th. Beyond the usual new content, this update includes some significant changes. Instead of one large raid, players will have three different raids to explore right away. Also, changes to the game’s API will limit how much help certain add-ons can provide during boss fights.

TopMob interviewed Paul Kubit and Dylan Barker, associate game director and lead encounter designer for World of Warcraft, about dungeons and raids in the upcoming WoW: Midnight expansion, and how changes like addon restrictions are impacting their design. Kubit explained that a key goal is to create enjoyable surprises. “There’s fun in novelty,” he said, “there’s fun in not knowing exactly what’s going to happen, or when something unpredictable happens.” This idea extends beyond the story itself, influencing everything from how encounters are built and the types of enemies players face, to the way content updates are released.

Fewer Addons in WoW: Midnight Means More Creative Encounters

The ‘Addonpocalypse’ Lets Blizzard Stay Ahead of the Boss Battle Arms Race

With the recent World of Warcraft: Midnight update, Blizzard has limited access to the game’s API. This impacts popular raid addons like Deadly Boss Mods, preventing them from fully alerting players to upcoming challenges or offering complete strategies to overcome them.

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In the past, creating truly challenging raids in World of Warcraft was difficult because players used addons that made complex encounters too easy. According to Barker, the best approach was to design challenges that required quick reactions and basic coordination, rather than intricate strategies. More complex mechanics would simply be solved by addons. This led developers to primarily focus on punishing mistakes with instant-death attacks and races against time, as those were the only challenges players couldn’t overcome by simply following addon instructions.

With the latest update, Midnight, raid encounters in World of Warcraft are much more flexible because players can no longer rely on addons to handle everything. According to Barker, this allows for more dynamic coordination during raids, where roles can change each time an event happens – something that was previously automated. This change helps keep bosses unpredictable, challenges raiders in new ways, and moves away from simply measuring damage output and healing effectiveness.

It’s really exciting to bring back gameplay where players need to communicate, use in-game signals, and coordinate with each other. We want players to work together, rather than relying on tools that simply tell them exactly where to go and what to do.

Deeper Instanced Storytelling in World of Warcraft: Midnight

More Raids, Story Dungeons, and Keeping Things Exciting

In addition to changes for add-on users, World of Warcraft is also updating how raids work. Unlike past expansions like The War Within and Dragonflight, which typically launched with a single large raid, the upcoming WoW: Midnight will feature three raids available right at the start.

• Voidspire
  • Imperator Averzian
  • Vorasius
  • Fallen-King Salhadaar
  • Vaelgor & Ezzorak
  • Lightblinded Vanguard
  • Crown of the Cosmos
• The Dreamrift
  • Chimaerus the Undreamt God
• March on Quel’Danas
  • Belo’ren, Child of Al’ar
  • Midnight Falls

In addition to these changes, Blizzard is introducing midseason raids in the upcoming Midnight expansion. The 2026 World of Warcraft roadmap details a single-boss raid called Sporefall in Patch 12.0.7, followed by another story-driven raid in Patch 12.1.5. According to Blizzard’s Kubit, the goal is to consistently find new and unexpected ways to excite players. Just as with encounter design, surprising fans and avoiding predictability will help keep the game fresh and engaging.

It shouldn’t be possible to accurately predict what a new update will contain before it’s announced. We don’t want people being able to say, ‘I know this update type, so it will definitely include these specific things and nothing else.’

In the War Within expansion, Blizzard took a new approach to dungeons by making The Rookery an essential part of the main story – players had to complete it to finish the campaign. Building on the Follower Dungeons system from the Dragonflight expansion, World of Warcraft players can now experience this dungeon with Baelgrim and other Earthen characters as companions.

The recent World of Warcraft: Midnight update heavily emphasizes story-driven dungeons. Three new dungeons – the Den of Nalorakk, Magister’s Terrace, and Nexus-Point Xenas – are fully integrated into the game’s campaign. According to developer Kubit, this approach acknowledges that World of Warcraft players enjoy the game in many different ways. The new Follower Dungeon system is especially beneficial, allowing players with disabilities, those who need to pause gameplay frequently, or those who prefer solo experiences to still enjoy these structured adventures with meaningful storylines.

Developers were also worried about players getting tired of fighting Void creatures. The War Within already features many of these enemies, and WoW: Midnight will add even more with Xal’atath’s Devouring Host. They didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Legion, where so much Fel magic and demons led to players feeling burnt out – a problem fans jokingly called “Green Fatigue.”

According to a senior encounter designer from the Legion expansion, creating a vast number of similar enemies became a real challenge. He described the stress of designing his 500th outdoor demon and trying to make it stand out. The solution, he explained, was to deliberately vary the visual style. While many key villains in World of Warcraft feature the typical blues and purples associated with the Void, the Midnight content included a conscious effort to use unexpected color schemes and themes, such as:

• Fel-wielding enemies in the Murder Row dungeon
• Undead in Windrunner Spire
• Troll spiritual magic and necromancy in the Den of Nalorakk and Maisara Caverns
• Light-wielding enemies in The Blinding Vale and the Lightblinded Vanguard in Voidspire
• Chimaerus, the WoW raid boss in The Dreamrift of Harandar who uses blue and gold spell effects evocative of Azerite

It’s also important to vary the visuals. Creating clear visual cues for enemy attacks is surprisingly difficult when working with Void creatures. As Kubit explained, both the enemies and the environment often share the same purple and blue color scheme. This makes it hard to distinguish dangerous effects – like a purple spell – from the background. Using different creature designs helps keep the game visually appealing and solves this design challenge for the developers.

The upcoming World of Warcraft: Midnight expansion is trying out some bold new ideas for its dungeons and raids. It’s still too early to know if these changes will be successful, but the passion and optimism of the developers, Kubit and Barker, suggest the expansion could be full of exciting surprises.

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2026-02-24 17:38