KEY POINTS

  • According to a Blizzard community manager, "World of Warcraft" is getting controller support in "Shadowlands"
  • "World of Warcraft: Shadowlands" is currently on its alpha phase
  • The Wow expansion is scheduled to be released this 2020

“World of Warcraft” is pretty complicated to play with a third-party controller, but Blizzard is addressing that issue in the game’s next big expansion.

According to Blizzard forum community manager Randy “Kaivax” Jordan, the game developer and publisher is trying to add some sort of controller support in “World of Warcraft: Shadowlands”, as they recognize that more players are using third-party add-ons.

Jordan also admitted that Blizzard has been thinking of adding controller support for some time now, and they saw the “Shadowlands” expansion as the perfect opportunity to do it.

As for what the first-party feature will cover given WoW’s complicated moves and actions per character, Jordan highlighted that Blizzard is working on adding support for key binds and camera view.

“For a long time, we’ve seen a small number of players turn to 3rd party add-ons, such as Console Port, in order to work through certain accessibility issues,” Jordan wrote.

“We always want to make WoW more widely accessible, if possible, so in Shadowlands, we’re attempting to add some support for key binds, camera, and turning a character on controllers such as the Xbox Adaptive Controller.”

The extent of the feature is still unknown, and fans might have to wait for some time before Blizzard actually makes an official announcement about their controller support. After all, “Shadowlands” only entered the Alpha test early this April.

The beta test will follow once all of their planned content for the expansion has been released into the test environment. With that said, it will take more time before the game goes to the Public Test Realm (PTR) where the controller support could be unveiled.

For now, fans will have to be satisfied with the fact that first-party controller support is in the works and that they won’t need to get a separate add-on just to play “World of Warcraft” the way they want to when the “Shadowlands” expansion arrives.

“World of Warcraft: Shadowlands” has no specific release date yet. However, it is scheduled to arrive this 2020 – that is if there won’t be delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic or major issues found during the testing period of the game.

World of Warcraft
“World of Warcraft” patch 7.3.5 adds new features and changes to the game. World of Warcraft website