"Made without crunch": World of Warcraft Midnight is the "the fastest expansion" Blizzard has ever made, with "no sacrifices to team health"

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"Made without crunch": World of Warcraft Midnight is the "the fastest expansion" Blizzard has ever made, with "no sacrifices to team health" News By Ashley Bardhan published 4 February 2026

WoW's cozy new expansion requires good work-life balance

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World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion, due out, March 2 is a hurricane, introducing a brand new housing feature to help shake the 22-year-old MMORPG up, along with a whirlwind of customization features. But, according to developer Blizzard, something this ambitious could only be accomplished without crunch.

Game director Ion Hazzikostas tells reporter Christopher Dring in a new The Game Business interview, while Midnight is certainly "the fastest expansion we've ever made, in terms of the shortest gap between expansions," he's glad its developers didn't have to sacrifice their weekends to produce its size and quality.

"No corners cut, no compromises in terms of what we're delivering to our players, and no sacrifices to quality," Hazzikostas says. "And I think most importantly, perhaps, no sacrifices to team health."

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The director also notices that the game industry's notorious "crunch" periods requiring extreme hours from its employees are, thankfully, becoming less acceptable. He tells The Game Business, sacrifice "may be a rarity in the game industry, but thankfully that's starting to change more." So Midnight "is an expansion that was made without crunch. This was an expansion that was made without telling the team, 'All right, we need to come in weekends and stay late, and work harder.'"

It's important for both World of Warcraft itself and its creators that Blizzard stick to this balanced approach to development. "Because at the end of the day," Hazzikostas says,

"we're going to keep making this game for years and years and decades. And this is a marathon, not a sprint. And we need to treat it accordingly."

World of Warcraft has always asked us to call Azeroth home, but Midnight's new player housing is the first time you'll have one to call your own.

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. TOPICS Blizzard Entertainment CATEGORIES PC Gaming Platforms Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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