Last week, dataminers found strings in World of Warcraft Shadowlands‘ files that some thought could be indicating a current-gen and next-gen console release.
Found by Twitter user bloerwald (and reported by Twitter user Marlamin), the strings are as follows:
WTF\DefaultGamePadBindings.wtf
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 4 Pro
PlayStation 5
First cool find by grayson in my Discord. Hints of gamepad support? :O pic.twitter.com/q6Bqidf3KW
— Martin Benjamins (@Marlamin) April 8, 2020
According to Blizzard Entertainment, these strings have to do with controller support for accessibility. Community Manager Kaivax explained on the official forums:
For a long time, we’ve seen a small number of players turn to 3rd party addons, such as Console Port 30, in order to work through certain accessibility issues.
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.
We’re glad that the community has felt empowered to make addons tailored to specific needs like this, and we’re going to continue to encourage that as best we can.
TL;DR, although Blizzard didn’t comment on reports of a console port, these particular strings are specifically for gamepad support. The mention of PS4 Pro does stand out but, as Marlamin pointed out, this could be the result of a Battle.net SDK import.
Whether the developer will expand to consoles once next-gen rolls around remains to be seen. We’ll keep our readers posted. In the meantime, let us know if you’d play World of Warcraft on a console.
[Source: GameRevolution]
