Ion Hazzikostas

In a group interview with content creators in London, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed that Blizzard plans to allow Dracthyr to roll other classes besides Evoker in The War Within. During the Interview, Ion confirmed that while that's the plan for the expansion, it won't be a launch feature, but he's hoping they'll be ready early on in the expansion. A glimpse of this future happened on the BlizzCon Warbands preview, when Blizzard has a Dracthyr character wearing leather gear by accident.

It's been a busy week in WoW and here's Blizzard's recap of the awesome events that happened this last week.

World of Warcraft recently confirmed that Dracthyr will be able to choose other classes in The War Within. While it likely won’t be right at launch, World of Warcraft fans can expect the race from Dragonflight to open up somewhere near the start of the expansion.

Catch up on all the latest World of Warcraft news from the last week—take a tour through The War Within in the WoWCast developer chat, pre-purchase the World of Warcraft®: The War Within™ 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition, get a closer look at the new Warbands System, and more! 

World of Warcraft's The War Within expansion spotlights one of the MMO's most ancient yet unexplored races: a group of antagonistic arachnoids known as the Nerubians. While that's exciting for lore heads everywhere, it also requires Blizzard to solve an age-old design dilemma – what about the players who don't like spiders? 

At the very beginning of The War Within, players are dropped into a familiar location. While we don't know exactly what's going on yet, the area is easy to recognize...

Blizzard has just given the wider public its first proper look at The War Within, the next expansion to World of Warcraft coming later this year and the start of its three-part, MCU-like Worldsoul Saga.

World of Warcraft: The War Within is out later this year, and at launch will be trying something new for a WoW expansion: a three-day, paid early access period. When this was announced, a lot of people were pretty upset! But in an interview with IGN ahead of the game's alpha launch, game director Ion Hazzikostas defended the decision, calling it an "experiment."

Join Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Associate Art Director Tina Wang as they sit down with Community Manager and host Bethany Stout to take you into The War Within™.

We've datamined the return of Dinar in Dragonflight Season 4! Used to deterministically purchase just a couple pieces of rare or important pieces of raid loot like trinkets and cantrip weapons, Dinar were added in Season 4 as a form of bad luck protection within the accelerated season of rotating raid content that wouldn't necessarily give players as many chances to earn those crucial items.

Finishing a story five years in the making, former World of Warcraft game designer Alexander Brazier (aka Xelnath) shares the chaotic tale of the famous Warlock class redesign in Mists of Pandaria, from Burning Embers to Dark Apotheosis and every wild idea in-between! Told through post-mortem examinations of lessons learned from over twenty years of experience in the video game industry, including work on World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Ori & the Will of the Wisps, and other AAA projects, Brazier shares an intimate view of a process rarely seen by players — the successes, failures, and sometimes wildly impractical ideas that shape game design. Part 1: Redefining the ClassPart 2: A Novel Resource SystemPart 3: Going Wild One of the most polarizing yet successful redesigns in World of Warcraft history, Mists of Pandaria overhauled virtually every aspect of what had become the least played class in the game, introducing new unique gameplay elements for all three Warlock specializations. While the first chapter of this story, which includes the origin of the secretive Black Harvest player council, was released several years ago, the tale has now been concluded with a review of the chaotic journey to redesign Demonology — from Pikmin-inspired Wild Imps, to Warlock players swapping perspectives with their pet, and even completely redesigning melee combat in order to create a fast and mobile Metamorphosis driven fighter that's suspiciously reminiscent of today's Demon Hunter... While these concepts and a serious attempt to turn Demonology into a full-fledged tank specialization complete with taunts and survivability cooldowns were ultimately scrapped, that iterative process led to the development of Dark Apotheosis — creating a unique and memorable experience for the tough and tanky demonic class fantasy. Dark Apotheosis allowed Demonology Warlocks to remain permanently in Metamorphosis, trading damage for dramatically stronger defensive capability. Though his passion project ultimately led to parting ways with Blizzard, these post-mortems offer an insightful look at the creative process which remains valuable today, allowing us to appreciate the intricate changes that have shaped class and game identity over the last two decades.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight won't be getting a fourth raid—which is something we've known for a while, as per an interview with game director Ion Hazzikostas. It will however still receive a fourth season with Fated Raids, alongside a recycled tier list the community can vote on as Blizzard revealed yesterday.

In an interview with World of Warcraft's player-led Community Council, game director Ion Hazzikostas weighed in on issues with the game's story and the steep narrative learning curve faced by newcomers. 

In a recent interview with WoW's community council (thanks, WoWhead), the game's current director Ion Hazzikostas was asked about the current state of the story, and how dang hard it is to introduce new players to its extensive lore.

The WoW community council interviewed Ion Hazzikostas and Jeremy Feasel on Solo Content and Open World Content discussing Tier Acquisition, Soloing BFA raids, the Trading Post and more! The topic of this interview was Small Group, Solo or Open World Content.

PC Gamer recently had a discussion with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas about the early access feature coming with the Epic Edition of The War Within. Ion put emphasis on the restrictions coming with early access, stating their goal is to not provide any long-term advantage. PC Gamer Interview Here's a quick summary of the PC Gamer Interview:

World of Warcraft feels like it's entering a new era—Microsoft acquisition aside, Dragonflight managed to take a bite out of the design choices responsible for Shadowland's historic low point for the game. 

World of Warcraft fans were delightfully surprised during BlizzCon 2023, thanks to the candid and transparent announcement of not one but three Warcraft expansions. 

Most Warcraft fans expected an expansion announcement for the massively multiplayer RPG at last weekend’s BlizzCon 2023. But to hear Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas tell it, Blizzard Entertainment’s bold decision to debut the next three expansions at once made even its own leaders nervous.

Shortly after the announcement for World of Warcraft‘s next expansions—a trilogy referred to as the Worldsoul Saga—the studio had seen quite a bit of criticism for offering 3 days of early access for players to players that would pre-order the Epic Edition of World of Warcraft: The War Within.

Thank you for all your WoW Q&A submissions! Join World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, Associate Game Director Morgan Day, World of Warcraft Classic Lead Software Engineer Ana Resendez, Associate Production Director Clayton Stone, Assistant Lead Game Designer Tim Jones, and host Bethany Stout as they answer your questions and take a look at what’s going on behind the scenes of World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Classic now, and cast a light on what’s coming in the future. (Video is in English Only)

Blizzard has posted the post-BlizzCon Q&A with Bethany Stout, Ion Hazzikostas, Morgan Day and more!

World of Warcraft's expansion pack The War Within, out next year, comes in several flavours. There's the standard version of the pack, which includes access to previous expansions, currency for cosmetics and a level 70 character boost. The Heroic edition gives you all that plus a mount, a pet and extra in-game cash. And then there's the most expensive Epic edition, which includes a pet, two toys, 30 days of game time... and three days of early beta access to the game, yours for $89.99 in the states.

World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas has confirmed there's «no long-term advantage» for players willing to pay for early access to the next expansion.

A week after World of Warcraft: The War Within fans blasted developer Blizzard for the expansion's $90 early access fee, the game's director has said there's "no long-term advantage" if you buy this edition. 

World of Warcraft: The War Within is the first WoW expansion where purchasing a more-expensive edition gets you into the new content more quickly. The announcement caused an immediate controversy, but the game's director claims it will not ultimately affect players' progression relative to each other.

During BlizzCon 2023, MrGM interviewed World of Warcraft Production Director Michael Bybee, and Senior Game Designer Sean McCann, discussing Dragonflight and looking forward to The War Within! Major reveals include an eight week content cycle for the remainder of Dragonflight and the return of the Renown system in The War Within.

Game Director for WoW, Ion Hazzikostas has clarified on Reddit that the Dragonflight Fated Season 4 will have a Dinar-type system similar to the one introduced in Shadowlands. His earlier comments in the Icy Veins interview about the system being 'too generous' was in reference to applying that loot system broadly across all seasons as they'd like to avoid vendors being the default way to acquire the best gear in WoW in every season. Icy Veins Developer Interview Recap

In an interview with Icy Veins, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed that Dragonflight will have a Season 4, which will feature Fated Raids! In the interview, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas discussed details about World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion, The War Within, and questions regarding the near future of the current Dragonflight expansion. Icy Veins BlizzCon Interview with Ion Hazzikostas BlizzCon WoW Deep Dive Panel Summary In another interview with Warcraft Wiki during BlizzCon 2023, WoW's development team confirmed that Dragonflight will not get a Patch 10.3. In terms of a fourth season, however, extra seasonal assets have already been found by Wowhead back in September, hinting at a potential Season 4, which has now been confirmed by Hazzikostas — including the return of Fated Raids. WoW's Game Director has also commented on Fyrakk's axe legendary, Classic Timewalking, and new systems coming with The War Within, such as Hero Talents and Delves. Here is a quick summary of the Icy Veins interview:

If you liked Ion Hazzikostas' What Sword shirt during the WoW Deep Dive panel, now you can buy your own on the Blizzard Gear Store. Blizzard has added two WoW-themed shirts to the store during the convention: What Sword? and The War Within Key Art T-Shirt. What Sword? in the Blizzard Gear StoreThe War Within Shirt in the Blizzard Gear Store The War Within Key Art T-Shirt is $30 and features Thrall, Alleria, and Anduin with their updated models and poses from the official key art. The What Sword T-Shirt is $35 and has been an ongoing meme in the community for many years.

BlizzCon 2023 has ended but we have the latest World of Warcraft  news coverage right here.

During the World of Warcraft®: Deep Dive panel at BlizzCon 2023, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas took viewers deeper into the features coming in the next chapter of World of Warcraft: The War Within™.

Blizzard was quick to release their own recap of the BlizzCon 2023 Deep Dive panel for World of Warcraft, covering Delves, Warbands, Hero Talents, the Earthen allied race, dynamic flight, PvP updates, and more!

In the WoW Deep Dive panel, Ion Hazzikostas announced that you can Dragonride in all old zones in Patch 10.2.5!

Blizzard has announced that the alpha for The War Within begins in Spring 2024! In the Deep Dive panel, Ion Hazzikostas announced that The War Within expansion alpha will start in Spring 2024! They want the Hero Talents system to be in right away so that players can give as much time for feedback as possible.

Moving into day two of BlizzCon 2023, the WoW: Deep Dive panel is just getting started, so we're all of the most interesting highlights!

Windwalker Monks have remained largely unchanged since Dragonflight launch receiving only small damage tweaks. Our Windwalker Writer, Babylonius, discusses the current state of Windwalker heading into Season 3 and what changes would help the spec feel more cohesive. Windwalker Monk Guide

One of Warcraft's founding fathers is now back at Blizzard full-time.

The 10.2 PTR adds many new environmental doodads related to World Events, pointing to ongoing efforts to refresh the in-game holidays. There's also assorted updates to rugs, hunting lodge decor, and siege vehicles, which are seen all across Azeroth. Some holiday models showing their age. While these models may seem inconsequential on their own, all together they help keep the world looking fresh--and we recently learned in an GameSpot interview that Game Director Ion Hazzikostas said an old-world revamp was likely to happen.

In an interview with GameSpot, World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas hinted that another old-world revamp of Azeroth is “likely to happen”. The last time this happened was the 2010 WoW expansion Cataclysm. According to Hazzikostas, the development team would learn lessons from Cataclysm which got a lot of negative criticism for deleting parts of the 2004-era WoW that many players loved. The goal would be to use modern solutions to preserve currently existing pieces of the game.

Players will be looking for new allies for their fight against Fyrakk in Dragonflight Patch 10.2, uniting against the threat to Amirdrassil in the Emerald Dream. As reported by Polygon, the quest to restore Tyr will continue, as well as a new questline in which Wrathion teams up with Vyranoth to recruit the Netherwing of Outland and the Thorignir Storm Dragons from Stormheim!

In an interview with GameSpot, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas talked about a possible old-world update as WoW is reaching its 20th anniversary. Full GameSpot Interview When asked about if the 20th anniversary would be an opportune time to revamp Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, Ion mentions that a revamp is something «likely to happen» in the future, but with no timeline for it set in stone. However, the team learned many lessons from Cataclysm and would have ways to allow players to return to old versions of zones if that would ever happen.

World of Warcraft's game director and executive producer talk the impact of the game's more frequent content updates, what exactly Chris Metzen is up to, and how the team is reinventing itself.

World of Warcraft players have been adventuring across the Dragon Isles of Dragonflight, and the next major content patch seems like it’s guaranteed to have them going blanky mode. Patch 10.2 is called Guardians of the Dream, and it takes players into the magical realm of the Emerald Dream. The patch includes a new zone, new world activities, a new raid, and new Dragonriding courses, glyphs, and mounts.