John Hight
A long time ago, we had the ability for players to go in - it was actually a paid service - and change their character. Much of that is now in the barber shop in the game, and as we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realised, 'Gosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service.' And we felt like that's not the right message.
Unfortunately, we can't fix that right now but it is our intent with Shadowlands to take that out of being a paid service thing and in the barber shop. But that's not something we can easily hotfix - unfortunately we can't do that right now. It is something that we're going to have in Shadowlands itself.
WoW is a game that doesn't try to emphasise sexual relationships so in that regard, we don't necessarily tell that part of the story other than to hint around it. But we certainly have characters - or we've always thought of characters as having - different gender identities in the game.
We don't try to put a big focus on it and make it a big deal, we just try to make the game feel comfortable, friendly, and approachable for everybody in the game, regardless of where they come from.
Does this mean there were already trans characters in the game?
Knowing some of our designers and having conversations with them, I'm sure that was the intent, but we like to keep things subtle.
