World of Warcraft may be adding options for customizing a character’s voice and pronouns in an upcoming patch for Dragonflight. First discovered in the Public Test Realm over a year ago, these new customization options might be finally coming to World of Warcraft soon.
Text strings connected to customizable gender options were first discovered on the World of Warcraft PTR in December 2021. Theoretically, these options would allow a player to select the pronouns NPCs would use for a character independently of their chosen body type.
Now, these options have reappeared on the PTR for World of Warcraft Patch 10.1, Embers of Neltharion. Players have recently discovered even more concrete evidence of he/him, she/her, and they/them pronouns as character selection options in World of Warcraft. What’s more, it seems players may also be able to choose between the masculine and feminine voice acting for their characters as well, as evidenced from a tooltip suggesting a way to hear sample voice lines.
These new customization options would be in line with World of Warcraft’s recent push towards representation and inclusivity. In Dragonflight, World of Warcraft renamed its gender selection options to body types–an addition that simplified customization for Dracthyr characters while also promoting diversity. According to World of Warcraft, this small change was the first step towards making Azeroth a place where everyone can feel welcome.
Players are excited about the prospect of these gender and voice options in World of Warcraft. Games like Cyberpunk 2077, Lost Ark, and Starfield have had similar gender customization options, and adding them to WoW would be an easy way to enhance LGBTQ+ representation in the game. Additionally, these options could eventually be used to expand character customization even further–World of Warcraft could add larger or smaller body types for existing races, or even new voice acting options. This could allow races to use options from their Allied Race counterparts, such as Kul Tiran voices for Human characters or Mag'har voices for Orcs.
That said, it is important to remember World of Warcraft has not formally announced these options are coming to the game yet. It is possible this feature could be changed, delayed past Patch 10.1, or never implemented at all. However, the datamined evidence suggests World of Warcraft is working on something, and that it will appear in some form sooner or later. If it is shipped as a part of Embers of Neltharion, players may be able to use these new features as soon as April or May. In the meantime, players can hope for an official confirmation of this potential World of Warcraft feature over the next few months.
World of Warcraft is available now on PC.