The Alliance and the Horde are the two dominant factions of Azeroth, the fantasy world setting of World of Warcraft and the original Warcraft trilogy. For as long as history can remember, these two opposing factions have taken up arms against each other. But, in a surprise announcement, Blizzard has confirmed that things are changing going forward. As Game Director Ion Hazzikosta explained in a Development Preview post, cross-faction cooperation will happen in World of Warcraft soon. Blizzard will put the feature to the test on the public test server as part of the game’s 9.2.5 update. Hazzikosta added that the latest addition to World of Warcraft won’t be complicated. Instead, all players have to do to access specific instanced content is to join a cross-faction community or add each other as friends. However, Hazzikosta warned that premade party members from different factions can still act hostile against each other outside of Dungeons, Raids, and rated PvP. As Hazzikosta clarified, not all instanced content in World of Warcraft will support cross-faction, such as the Trials of the Crusader and the Battle of Dazar’alor. Activision and Blizzard have each made positive announcements over the past month. One can’t help but wonder if this is the publisher’s last-ditch attempt at righting the ship before new management takes over. After Microsoft paid nearly $70 billion to buy Activision-Blizzard in January, Activision-Blizzard will fall under Phil Spencer’s leadership once the deal closes in mid-2023. Until then, Activision-Blizzard will have to deal with a multitude of workplace discrimination lawsuits and allegations lodged towards the company’s long-time CEO, Bobby Kotick. Speaking of Blizzard, the studio just effectively banned boosters from World of Warcraft with its latest policy change. Meanwhile, Blizzard has at least two projects in development, including a survival game and an unannounced title.
