'People are pro crabs': WoW's artists tested leg angles and other features before choosing crabs for its new arachnophobia mode

When World of Warcraft developers were working on the new spider-themed Nerubian race for their new The War Within expansion, they brought in an arachnophobia expert to tell them what, exactly, makes spiders scary to some people.

The result is the expansion's new arachnophobia mode, which turns almost all spiders into crabs at a click of a player's mouse. Players who ponied up for the game’s Epic Edition pre-order will get a chance to dive into the new WoW expansion for the first time today during early access and see the new mode for themselves.

At first glance, crabs might not appear much better—lots of legs, lots of clicking noises—but Blizzard's expert assured developers they are. Players agreed, said WoW associate art director Tina Wang in a group interview with PC Gamer.

"We received a lot of information that informed some testing that we did, such as the angle of the legs, the number of legs, the presence of fangs, things like that," she said. "When it comes to testing of the phobia, it's really significant. Even though crabs seem spider-like to the casual observer, when it comes to phobias, it makes a huge difference. That message was reinforced in our game's user testing as well: People are pro crabs."

The arachnophobia expert was one of many the team brought in for the new expansion. Others helped inform the game's underground environments, including one zone lit by a giant color-changing crystal.

"We have this really cool group, Blizz U," Wang said. "We get researchers or experts to come and chat with us about their area of expertise. So for instance, for War Within, one of the ones that we had initially was one about exploring caves. We recently had one about crystals. When it comes to different cultures, those are also ones that we also consult experts in various spaces to hear from them as well."

That research can go deeply in-depth for work on things like Overwatch characters, who are representative of actual cultures and therefore need to be exactly right, she said.

"On World of Warcraft, oftentimes we're taking bits of inspiration from places," she said. "So we're never trying to represent a culture very directly, but we do want to make sure that when we take inspiration we are doing that from an informed place."

So the team gets briefings on things like swords and armor through the ages. The results are changes in how the game's art is created, in some cases to be more realistic, in others to not scare the pants off people who deeply dislike spiders.

"There was a virtual forge tour that we took, because there are a lot of forges with the Earthen [race]. It's just artists getting to see that, and informing their work," Wang said.

The War Within is WoW's 10th expansion, and 2024 is its 20th year online.