There are a lot of features present in the first alpha test of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, but one feature that wasn’t highlighted directly has come to light: the removal of gender references in character creation.
The body types themselves are not changed, but the text selecting between male and female has now been adjusted to Body 1 and Body 2 respectively, removing the gendered association. In addition, datamining of an earlier alpha build found strings that featured a choice of preferred pronouns. It should be noted that these strings were not implemented in the alpha build, and a later update to the alpha has since removed those strings.
Additionally, an earlier interview from game director Ion Hazzikostas also referenced the option for players to select the voice of their character, though that’s not currently available in the alpha nor is there any timeline for these choices to arrive to the MMORPG.
These are likely to be viewed as small steps for the wider LGBTQ+ WoW community, but at the same time it’s hard to fault a bit more flexibility in character creation, menial as these changes may be.
