World of Warcraft is solving a major problem…crabs?

An interesting feature coming to World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Civil War, is an arachnophobia filter. While other games have addressed this issue and replaced the models with vague geometric shapes or other less creepy alternatives, the World of Warcraft team has replaced all spider models in the game with…crabs.

This makes sense! This upcoming expansion focuses on the Nerubians, a race of spider-like creatures that tick all the boxes when it comes to scaring those who hate the eight-legged crawlers. Blizzard has hired various experts and team members with phobias and decided now was the perfect time to take action. Their efforts are not only widespread, but also oddly respectful of the legacy.

So, starting with the Civil War content, all the nerubians were replaced with various crab models that were reused from previous World of Warcraft content. However, if you jump back to Northrend through the portal and fly into Naxxramas, all the spiders there will change. Maexxna – The final boss of the Spider Zone, has a huge model that is similar in color to the original boss. If you travel to Outland from The Burning Crusade, you’ll find that a giant Starscream named “Terokkarantura” in Terokkar Forest was originally a vibrant red monster enemy. With the arachnophobia filter, it’s a giant red crab. perfect.

Returning to raids for a moment, all the mechanics still seem to be working perfectly as you’d expect. It wouldn’t be much help if a raider with that option stood in the middle of a boss mechanic, dying and ruining the entire experience for everyone. It all seems well thought out, even as a secondary option that a handful of players will benefit from. The only spider I could find in the alpha version was on the Nax loading screen. That’s it.

While talking to Holly Longdale, executive producer of World of Warcraft, I got a little insight into the making of Arachnophobia Switch. “Ever since we had a team meeting and showed off some nerubian concept art, some of our own staff have asked what we would do for players with arachnophobia,” she explained. “We have some of our own employees who are arachnophobic and they’re like, Oh my gosh, no, I’m not going to play that! Or how do I do this expansion without dealing with all the spider stuff?”

As for returning to legacy content and getting everything right and true to the original model, Longdale points to the World of Warcraft team’s particular approach to development as its roots. “We’re World of Warcraft! Of course someone cares about making sure the colors match! To me, that’s a great description of this team. They care about everything. It’s not just about changing models… they have to verify everything I’m sure QA spawned everything and said we have to change the colors…but all of this took no more than a week or so and this team cared about every detail – which is why they were so frustrated with the bugs. Very frustrating (laughs).”

Obviously, there’s a lot to look forward to with any new expansion for World of Warcraft. But in addition to new raids, dungeons, mounts, and quests, it’s nice to know that we’re taking the time to make the entire party more hospitable to those who are out there, who might otherwise feel overwhelmed by all the eyes and legs lurking around Push away. Kudos to the World of Warcraft team for putting a lot of real thought and care into features like this.