For 18 years, World of Warcraft’s Horde and Alliance have been known as one of gaming’s most popular rivalries. Today, however, that rivalry is beginning to fade, as players of Blizzard Entertainment’s world-class MMORPG are given more incentives to make love, not war(craft).
Since World of Warcraft’s initial release in 2004, players have been pitted against each other based on which faction they chose to play, Horde or Alliance. The game’s lore sees these two factions as opposing forces that are, by default, hostile toward one another. This aspect is represented in-game through enabling PVP between factions and NPC hostility towards the opposing faction.
Over the years, WoW players have derived a sense of pride for their chosen faction, representing which one they chose on social media, and being vocal about their opposition to the other – all in good fun, of course.
In June 2022, Blizzard Entertainment introduced cross-faction instances to the game. This allowed players from the Horde and the Alliance the option to squad up and take on dungeons and raids together for the first time ever. As revolutionary as that was, it seems that was just the beginning of the company’s plans to bring the two factions together.
In a recent news post on the World of Warcraft website, the company stated, “We’re blurring the faction line for guilds and allowing players to create and join same-realm guilds with their friends from the opposite faction.” In order for players to take part in cross-faction guilds, members of opposing factions that want to join forces must be Battle.net friends or be in the same Battle.net community in order to send/receive an invite. In order to add a Battle.net friend, you’ll need their BattleTag including the preceding 4-digit number (i.e. JohnDoe#1234). You can find your BattleTag by clicking your profile in the top right of the Battle.net launcher.
The post also states that members of opposing factions in the same guild “will benefit from unlocked shared perks,” including “guild repairs and social conveniences.” Guild members will be able to freely chat with and provide support for their guildmates regardless of faction.
As far as restrictions go, guild members will be unable to contribute to faction-specific achievements. Additionally, guildmates in opposite factions will still appear as hostile in the open world. In instanced zones, however, that hostility is removed.
The update arrives on May 2 as a part of the Dragonflight Patch 10.1: Embers of Neltharion, which also introduces a new raid, “Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible”, along with the new quest zone of Zaralek Cavern.