With the launch of the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands alpha this week, dataminers have been digging into the MMORPG‘s new game files to find out what’s in store. Along with indications there might be a WoW Shadowlands autobattler on the way, signs of gamepad support have also been discovered – and now Blizzard’s confirmed it is working on “some support”, including for the Xbox Adaptive Controller.
Findings by a WoW dataminer (who goes by the username Grayson) of gamepad support in the game files have been shared on Twitter by user Martin Benjamins (via GamesRadar), which you can see below. Now, the online RPG game’s community manager Randy ‘Kaivax’ Jordan has confirmed Blizzard is looking to introduce some support to increase accessibility in this year’s Shadowlands update. “For a long time, we’ve seen a small number of players turn to third party add-ons, such as Console Port, in order to work through certain accessibility issues,” he says.
“We always want to make WoW more widely accessible, if possible, so in Shadowlands, we’re attempting to add some support for keybinds, camera, and turning a character on controllers such as the Xbox Adaptive Controller.”
He adds the studio’s glad that the World of Warcraft playerbase has “felt empowered to make add-ons tailored to specific needs like this”, and that it’s going to keep encouraging this as much as it can.
First cool find by grayson in my Discord. Hints of gamepad support? :O pic.twitter.com/q6Bqidf3KW
— Martin Benjamins (@Marlamin) April 8, 2020
The Xbox Adapative Controller was first released in 2018 and, compatible with both the console and Windows 10 on PC, it utilises various switches, foot controls, joysticks, purpose-built quadriplegic hands-free controls, and wheelchair mounts in order to make gaming as inclusive as possible.
It’s not clear from the post how far along into the process of building this support Blizzard is right now, and there’s no definite release date for Shadowlands to mark on our calendars just yet. However, the expansion’s due to drop sometime in 2020 – hopefully we’ll see Xbox Adaptive Controller support arrive alongside it, so as many people can dive into the action as possible at launch.