World of Warcraft’s massive Undermine(d) update is due to release this week, featuring the first big content addition to The War Within expansion; one that sees players trade the skies of Dragonflight for an altogether more subterranean locale.
With Undermine(d), Blizzard has come storming out of the gates in 2025 with a brand-new zone, mount mechanics, and a massive number of changes to existing systems. The coolest thing about this update, though? It’s all about goblins - Warcraft’s hypercapitalist mad-cap scientists with a penchant for contraptions, industry, and of course explosives. If you’re already saying to yourself ‘time is money, friend’ in a New York accent then you’re exactly the kind of player this update is for.
I too, am one of those players, so I was keen to sit down with assistant lead quest designer Mark Kelada and senior software engineer Emily Berger from Blizzard to ask a number of questions about Undermine(d). I was interested to hear details about what players can expect with some of the new features, but was pleased when both shared some of the influences and philosophies behind the update, too,
Life in the big city
As shown in the early teasers, Undermine(d) is an incredibly ambitious update that not only presages The War Within’s season two but also brings the legendary subterranean goblin capital of the Undermine to the expansion.
If you’re thinking of the goblin starter zone from Cataclysm, you’re on the right track, but Undermine(d) will double down on that distinctive zaniness that Warcraft goblin-kind are known for. According to Kelada: “You can look around Undermine and see an expression of goblin culture in everything you see - the zone is wild.”
You can look around Undermine and see an expression of goblin culture in everything you see - the zone is wild.
Teaser footage from the Undermine(d) trailer showcases the Undermine in all its glory. Highways snake through multi-story ramshackle structures while floodlights project into the vast subterranean cavern that hosts the city.
While entirely fantastical, the Undermine exhibits a strong influence from real-life cities; something that Kelada specifically alluded to. “The design of undermine really came from places in the real world that we were looking at for inspiration - asking ourselves what makes a city a city? It's usually tall or big buildings. We wanted to make sure that when you were looking at places you felt like you were in that metropolis”.
As a contrast to the more rural, open zones of The War Within like the Isle of Dorn or The Ringing Deeps, the Undermine is an ambitious attempt to cram in a massive amount of content into a densely packed urban zone - something not usually seen outside of central, capital zones in World of Warcraft like Orgrimmar or Stormwind.
The Undermine is a zone that’s been heavily mentioned in the lore up until this point but players have never had a chance to actually walk the streets of the legendary goblin capital. Was it daunting to take on the challenge of finally realizing the Undermine? Not according to Kelada: “We had a lot of fun coming up with stories in the space. Everyone rose to the challenge that was presented with this cool iconic location.”
We clearly need to have a car
Of course, those long highways in the Undermine are just begging to be raced down. “When I looked at that I thought we clearly need to have a car in Undermine,” states Kelada. And so was born D.R.I.V.E. - a new traversal mechanic that will see you piloting a sweet custom goblin hot rod through the streets of Undermine.
In recent years, Blizzard has focused on breaking up the bog-standard mount control system that piloted players through its world for almost two decades for something more dynamic. The recent addition of dragon-riding in the previous Dragonflight expansion sees players constantly maintaining a balance between gliding and swooping in a kind of dynamic mini-game. If you’re immediately thinking of D.R.I.V.E. as dragon riding but on the ground, you're not a million miles off.
We took a lot of lessons from Dragonriding
“We took a lot of lessons from dragon riding,” states Emily Berger, who was open about the previous mechanic’s influence on D.R.I.V.E. but was also quick to point out the fresh challenges the team faced in bringing this new traversal mechanic to the busy streets of Undermine. “An interesting with the Undermine zone is that it's a lot more dense and populated” stated Emily, admitting that the engineers didn’t have to focus much on collision with Dragonflight’s open skies. With Undermine, the team “worked on the stopping feeling, real velocity physics, and collision so you can move over things, bounce over walls, drift around things, and have that nice feeling impact".
In addition to drifting, boosting, and racing, the new D.R.I.V.E. mechanic will also feature a host of player customization for their cars. You won’t just be giving your ride a fresh lick of paint, but also unlocking components to customize your car specifically to your personal driving style.
How will the players react to this new mechanic? Well, according to Kelada there may be a slight adjustment from the stop-and-start on-a-dime controls that ground mounts have traditionally employed in World of Warcraft. "For some people, like with dragon riding, there's going to be a learning curve. But, as you give it some time you start to understand when to boost and when not to boost, it'll make a lot more sense and you'll connect to the car as a mode of locomotion throughout the zone. It's a lot of fun."
It does look a lot of fun, but will it come to legacy content? I was keen to ask. “There are a lot of conversations about, if this connects to our players, is there something else we can do to take this forward? A horse that drifts would be awesome to see but not something that would make a lot of sense.” Kelada was keen to highlight Blizzard's commitment to acting on player feedback but remained tightlipped on whether D.R.I.V.E. would feature outside of the Undermine. Damn, I was really hoping to blaze around the streets of Orgimmar with my massive collection of mounts.
Help for healers
Accessibility is really important and something that we've been striving as a team to do
It’s not just a new zone and driving mechanics that Undermine(d) brings to The War Within. Crucially, the update also presages the expansion's season two and brings key changes to established systems like Mythic+ and the new solo-friendly delve dungeon dives. A particular focus has been put on simplifying certain progression paths and making the content more accessible for a wider range of specs.
"Accessibility is really important and something that we've been striving as a team to do, just overall, in terms of progression, accessibility in mechanics and features," stated Berger, when asked about the overall philosophy behind some of these changes to existing features.
Berger specifically highlighted the plight of beleaguered healers in delves as a particular pain point. Delves, as a whole, have been well received by the player base but the balance between class archetypes has been a common complaint as the non-player character (NPC) companions tend to compliment DPS or tank players over healers. The new tank spec for Bran looks to help alleviate some of these issues by helping those healers form the holy trinity of class archetypes without having to rely on a (human) friend.
“One of the cool things about the new bran spec is that it makes it a lot easier for healers to play and feel involved in the delves system,” said Berger, who also illuminated the main challenges the team faces when trying to make delves (and content in general) more accessible for a wide range of players.
“Specifically with delves, one of the key things is that we have different players with different times where they can come in and play.” states Berger, “maybe they only have 20 minutes where they can run a delve and I think one of the most exciting things that we've been adding to the game is the ability of all types of players of all types of levels to be able to come in and play. The accessibility thing is something that speaks to me and the team a lot."
Finding ways to speak to different players
With a focus on alleviating some of the issues faced by players so far in The War Within and a massive host of new content, Undermine(d) is sure to give players plenty to sink their teeth into until season three later this year. Naturally, I was keen to ask what was next for the long-established game in 2025.
"So, can we expect more next season? Nothing to say on that. But, we're very responsive to feedback on looking to improve the features in the future," states Kelada, further detailing that Blizzard is specifically "finding ways to speak to the different players and the experiences they're looking for. That's really where all this stems from: reacting to feedback on how people want to play World of Warcraft”. Let it be known if you enjoy your new Goblin ride, then.
World of Warcraft’s upcoming Undermine(d) update is out on February 25 and will be followed shortly by season two of The War Within on March 4.
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