World of Warcraft: Shadowlands update 9.2.5, which is out now as of May 31, grants the ability for members of the Alliance and Horde to join parties together for certain kinds of party activities. That means you’ll be able to join cross-faction groups and parties and play alongside your friends in the MMORPG, even if they’ve sworn allegiance to your mortal enemies.
Shadowlands Update 9.2.5 is a significant patch, adding new questlines for Blood Elves and Dark Iron Dwarves, as well as the new Enigma Crucible PvP arena. All wings of Torghast, Tower of the Damned will be opened (instead of having only two wings open per week), and there’s a redesign for the report player menu pane.
But perhaps the most significant change with this patch is the addition of cross-faction instances. It’s not a free-for-all, mind, because the Alliance and Horde remain generally hostile to each other. However, if you have a friendship via BattleTag or Real ID with a player who is a member of the opposing faction, you will be able to invite them to a party once the patch arrives.
Pre-made group leaders, however, can opt to make their parties faction exclusive, and there are some other limitations on cross-faction play, too. Random matchmade activities – Heroic dungeons, skirmishes, and random battlegrounds, namely – are all still same-faction, and there are several instances that will remain locked to a single faction.
These include:
- Trial of the Champion
- Trial of the Crusader
- Vault of Archavon
- Icecrown Citadel
- Baradin Hold
- Siege of Boralus
- Battle of Dazar’alor
- Darkmaul Citadel (Exile’s Reach dungeon)
More details on cross-faction play can be found on the official World of Warcraft blog.