WoW lead says Labyrinths could restore the lost maze feel

Remember back in the good old days, when MMO dungeons used to be big, sprawling mazes you could spend hours just getting lost in? Now most of them follow a similar formula: narrow-ish corridors with three to five bosses. Sure, the set dressing varies, but the mechanical template is always bite-sized.

I recently spoke to associate game director Paul Kubit and lead encounter designer Dylan Barker about Labyrinths, an upcoming feature in World of Warcraft: Midnight. It's still a large work in progress—not releasing on launch, but instead a few patches down the line—but it seems like a huge evolution of The War Within's Delves system.

Kubit sees Labyrinths as a counter to how WoW's Mythic+ dungeons—timed, high-stress gauntlets designed to be completed in minutes, not hours—have shaped the game's design philosophy. "If you remember, back in Classic, we had dungeons like Maraudon, Blackrock Spire and Depths, where we had like 20 bosses in a dungeon.

wow, labyrinths, midnight, mythic+, delves, war within, paul kubit, dylan barker, maraudon, blackrock spire