World of Warcraft: The War Within's Arachnophobia Mode…

Summary

World of Warcraft introduces Arachnophobia Mode for players with a fear of spiders, replacing them with crabs for a more comfortable experience.
By providing this feature, WoW is setting a compassionate standard, similar to color-blind filters and motion sickness settings.
This change shows how the game is striving to be more accessible to all players, helping those with phobias enjoy the game more fully.

World of Warcraft: The War Within is just around the corner, bringing with it exciting new zones. Each of these is full of new and familiar creatures, but most notable is the secret kingdom of Azj-Kahet and its featured raid. This area is full of nerubians, a race of spider-like creatures who have long haunted the minds of bug-wary players.

While it’s fair to say that most people find spiders and their ilk a little unsettling or creepy, some people are deeply affected by the mere sight of them. Arachnophobia is characterized by a serious and debilitating fear of spiders and other eight-legged creepy crawlies, one which can cause severe psychological discomfort and even lasting trauma. Luckily for these players, World of Warcraft has provided an out.

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By Kelly Schmidt

How WoW's Arachnophobia Setting Works

It’s estimated that around one in twenty people suffer from arachnophobia, so immersing WoW’s entire player base in a raid full of spiders could become a problem. Nerub’ar Palace, along with its surrounding zone, features arachnoid bosses and countless other spider NPCs, but The War Within’s new Arachnophobia Mode can change all that in a moment. It’s a seamless transition that works the same way many of the game’s toys do, but instead of changing everyone into corgis or gnolls for a giggle, this feature has a noble purpose.

Coming with the new expansion, this change is a simple setting that players can toggle to make most spider and nerubian models appear as crabs and similar crustaceans instead. This way, the NPCs can still keep their respective crawling animations but with ten legs instead of eight. It also applies to other players' arachnids in the game, namely spider mounts and pets, but this will likely become the case soon enough. Even spiders in old zones like Azjol-Nerub and Naxxramas have been serviced for this mode, since these areas are only meant to be creepy, not terrifying.

Why Crabs Have Come to the Rescue

It might seem counter-intuitive to replace spiders with crabs, which are basically aquatic creepy crawlies, but there might be method to this apparent madness. In fact, kabouraphobia, or the fear of crabs, is far less common than a phobia of spiders, and exposure to crabs has been used to successfully desensitize arachnophobes and help them control their fears. So, not only is World of Warcraft not hurting arachnophobia sufferers, but it could even help them.

It’s not clear why crabs just aren’t considered as scary as spiders, but it could be for several reasons. Crabs only have two eyes, they move much slower, and they’re scavengers instead of hunters. Most of all, they don’t hide under people’s beds, behaving themselves by staying in and around bodies of water. Regardless of why, arachnophobes who play WoW can rest easy knowing that instead of facing freaky fangs, they’ll just have to deal with clicky claws instead.

World of Warcraft Is Setting a Compassionate Standard

Much like World of Warcraft’s color-blind filters, Arachnophobia Mode is meant as a helping hand to a minority of players who could hugely benefit from just a few small changes to the game. Another example of this being implemented in Dragonflight was the addition of dynamic flight settings that help reduce motion sickness or disorientation in players. It shows how the game has tried to make itself more accessible to everyone, which can only be a good thing.

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