World of Warcraft "will continue to decline" unless the MMO gets a "reset," says former Blizzard boss

• Copy link
• Facebook
• X
• Pinterest
• Flipboard
• Email

Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful

Want to add more newsletters?

Join the club

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter

One of Blizzard's former leaders has some strong words for the team behind World of Warcraft following a bug-filled patch that led to the developers apologizing and promising to "do better."

Over on Twitter, former Blizzard Entertainment boss and Xbox corporate vice president at Microsoft, Mike Ybarra, weighs in on a story doing the rounds – one we covered ourselves, in fact – covering the buggy state of World of Warcraft following patch 12.0.5.

"Unfortunate," he says. "WoW has to reset and the commitment has to be clear and firm or it will continue to decline."

Article continues below

Ouch.

The patch itself added a few activities to offer the MMO's many denizens something new to do – from fishing activities and a prop hunt mode to new PvE activities suited to gearing your main and alt accounts. Unfortunately, though, players haven't been able to enjoy much of the new content due to various bugs.

We've already reported on the buggy Prop Hunt mode that lets some players use their minimap to find anyone, though fans have logged other issues. As a result, the World of Warcraft team released a statement promising to work "around the clock" to fix the MMO and to take the moment as an opportunity to learn from.

It's not World of Warcraft's best moment, though I'm not sure I'd say the MMO is in decline. The Shadowlands expansion wasn't a highlight for many, sure, though the following Dragonflight and the Worldsoul saga we're currently in have largely gone over well. The content is flowing at a solid cadence, and folks mostly have something fun to do. There are challenges to face, sure, though it feels like a time to fine-tune the balance between content volume and frequency rather than hitting the big reset button.

Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

World of Warcraft's current storyline is "like a Saturday morning cartoon," former Blizzard quest designer says: "Where are the stakes?"

CATEGORIES

Iain HarrisNews Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.

View More

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Logout LATEST ARTICLES

1. 1Larian keeps a reminder of Baldur's Gate 3 breaking Steam, hopes Divinity will "absolutely demolish" Valve's storefront
2. 2Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred release time and preload explained
3. 3Slay the Spire 2 patch makes some terrible cards actually good and lower Ascensions easier
4. 4Invincible changed the gender of Tech Jacket because Robert Kirkman wanted to fix a major comic book "shortcoming"
5. 5Marathon, Arc Raiders, and Last Flag devs discuss the ongoing evolution of multiplayer shooters