Player Housing: From Alpha Rumour to Midnight
For almost twenty years player housing was the most famous lost feature of World of Warcraft: tested in the alpha, promised for "a later patch" in 2004, and then quietly shelved. It is lost no longer. Housing opened in early access with patch 11.2.7 in December 2025 and launched in full with Midnight on 2 March 2026.
The promise of 2004
Some version of housing existed in the alpha: a house model named GuildHouseA survived in the game files and can be seen on GM Island. In a fan site developer chat on 26 July 2004, Blizzard said housing would come after launch, probably as housing districts added to the capital cities. In the Stormwind canals, they explained, a blue instance portal behind a big portcullis was where the Stormwind housing district would be entered.
The district never came. For the next two decades, housing was the feature players asked for most and the one Blizzard kept saying was harder than it looked.
Housing in the game today
Houses are built in shared neighborhoods rather than in private instances. There are two of them: Founder's Point for the Alliance, with human-style houses, and Razorwind Shores for the Horde, with orc-style houses. Your houses belong to your whole account, and you can own up to two, one in each neighborhood.
- Decor. Furniture and ornaments are collected account-wide from quests, vendors, achievements and professions, then placed freely inside and outside the house.
- Neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is an outdoor area shared by many players, with benches, mailboxes and vendors in a town centre.
- Endeavors. A new neighborhood-wide project every month, with its own theme, visiting NPCs and rewards. Progress also raises the neighborhood's Favor, which unlocks bonuses such as a higher decor limit for every resident.
Housing needs the Midnight expansion. During early access in patch 11.2.7 it was open only to players who had pre-ordered Midnight.
Housing 101: Getting Started · World of Warcraft
From the archive
Player housing won't arrive until some time after launch. We intend to add it in a later live patch or an expansion. Right now the idea, which may still change, is to extend the capital cities with housing districts.
Fan site developer chat, 26 July 2004
Mira Duskwood is the pen name of the Lost WOW editorial team. Mira writes the secret walkthroughs and the history of the lost areas, and keeps them up to date when a patch changes something.
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