World of Warcraft has just launched its exciting new goblin-filled patch, Undermine(d) as part of its ongoing additions to The War Within expansion. After years of skirting around the goblin cartels of Azeroth, players are finally getting to experience the hidden capital city of Undermine itself. Featuring an impressive new ground mount system called D.R.I.V.E - where players can race around in flashy cars - and deep lore involving the four goblin cartels, Undermine(d) is more like a mini expansion in itself rather than a patch for The War Within.

For the past 20 years of ever-evolving story in World of Warcraft, goblins have continued to prove themselves to be a vibrant contrast to the more familiar fantasy environments of the game. They approach things in a much different style from the rest of the communities of WoW, through lots of flashy lights, fast talking, and even faster cars. The use of goblin-invented cars is certainly catching the attention of many, with the new D.R.I.V.E. system allowing players to take the wheel and even customize their own cars to race around Undermine.

ScreenRant recently spoke with World of Warcraft's Lead Visual Development Artist, Gabriel Gonzalez, and Lead Software Engineer, May Flores-Garcia, about what went into the design of this illuminated underground capital city of Undermine, as well as the D.R.I.V.E system.

Note that this interview took place prior to the full Undermine(d) release, which is now available for all players to jump in and enjoy.

Deg The Goblin Capital Of Undermine

A Unique Community Within The World Of Azeroth

ScreenRant: I have not played the Undermine(d) content yet on the PTR, but I am excited to play it as soon as it goes live. In the past, I've always loved the goblin areas with their unique look and everything that they bring to the game and, obviously, with Undermine being the capital of the goblin empire, I would imagine you all probably had so much fun just deg and coming up with the visuals for the area. What went into that whole process of coming up with that design? Did you get to go to Vegas or anything?

Gabriel Gonzalez: (laughing) No, no field trips. But I would say, I think a lot of people like you, a lot of people in the team, are super ionate about goblins. It was something that had always been in the back of our minds, just in the team, like, /2oh, when are we gonna do that? When are we gonna go there?" And since we were doing this expansion, mostly on the ground, it's like, okay, well, this is the time and moment where we do it. It's, it's now or never, you know.

It was a lot of doing research on those places that we do , like in Kezan, there were some other places that we had seen, like the Motherlode, where we kind of dipped our toe a little bit into that type of fantasy, right? I think the key difference between what we saw before, and what we see now in Undermine(d) is that Undermine is meant to feel like a really dense metropolis. It's like a city, there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of activity going on.

Their capitalistic enterprises are on full display there. So a lot of what went into it was just really trying to capture the chaos and the whimsy of goblins, really. I would say, like every single week when we were exploring this patch, and we were doing our weekly reviews, and folks would show what they had worked on. It was probably the most laughter, like the most laughing out loud that we had ever done, because every single drawing was crazier than the next, every single idea was sillier than the next.

I think that speaks at the core to the fantasy that we're trying to reach out with Undermine(d). Really leaning into that fun, whimsy, kind of silliness that I think WoW, does really well, but goblins do particularly and exceptionally well.

ScreenRant: You mentioned how this is a really big city, there's a lot of stuff going on. How hard was it to try to make it have that feeling? I imagine there's just goblins everywhere. There's flashy cars and all this stuff. How did you manage to do that without making it so everybody's computer would just crash?

Gabriel Gonzalez: I think that's definitely something that we think a lot about. And maybe May can speak to this a little bit more, but I , back when we worked in Suramar, that was definitely something that we had to go through, even back then, trying to figure out what is the most efficient way to create a city that is going to be really fun, capture the fantasy, but also not be big drain on the on your machine.

I think a lot of it is trying to be super efficient with the art that we're putting in there, but fantasy wise, it's what are the objects that we can put in the city that are gonna really give you the most bang for your buck, and that is really gonna hit the player over the head with that type of fantasy. Yeah, that's what I would speak on that on the art side.

May Flores Garcia: I will say it was a little bit of a challenge on the engineering side, especially for D.R.I.V.E. One of the things that I know players would always joke about in Dragonflight, or something, you know, like Dragonriding or Skyriding is that tree branches are my Dragon's worst enemy, right?

So in Undermine city, we have so many things, it's so dense. We have so many random little things on the street. That's something that we did need to be very careful about this time with the D.R.I.V.E. system, and how to properly handle collisions so you're not constantly colliding with things on the street or just with the buildings, and suddenly you just stop and all your momentum and velocity is completely gone. So that's something that we did try to pay a lot of attention to on the engineering side.

Also, one of the things we have, we do have some restrictions about how fast you can typically go with something just in general. So you get when you move in World of Warcraft - and that's typically because we load assets on the go so we don't give you loading screens - if you go too fast, then assets are not going to load. And I think that's something that some players in the PTR were mentioning with D.R.I.V.E. Like, "hey, we're actually not seeing some assets" or, "it seems like it's not loading." So we're like, oops. I think we kind of forgot to cap a little bit of the velocity.

ScreenRant: Of course, everybody wants to go fast. I am going to touch more on the D.R.I.V.E. stuff in a little bit also, but going back to just like the design of the whole city and the area, I would imagine, it seems like the lighting plays a really important role in everything with underground areas. Was it very different to work with these flashy Vegas-style effects and lighting, rather than just the regular fantasy zones and areas?

Gabriel Gonzalez: I wouldn't say it was particularly difficult, but I think it was especially fun, because we don't really get to do that very often. I think in World of Warcraft there are seldom times when you kind of see, like, search lights placed everywhere, like having a lot of light bulbs and lighting and things like that. But I think that was the most exciting thing about building the Undermine, because - to your earlier point - it's like an underground city.

So it's like, "Okay, number one, how do we make it feel like, it's thematically underground, but it still needs to have that kind of balance of 'I don't want to feel like I'm kind of stuck under a rock or something like that."'" It's got to feel like it has its own atmosphere to it. And I think that speaks to even how the goblins create their own spaces in very fake artificial ways.

They have this giant dome covering the entire city. It's big enough in order for it to [have] atmosphere to it, but, you can even see them creating their own sense of sky up there. You look up, and they have cardboard clouds and light bulbs out there to make them look like stars and things like that. So I think the way that we thought about it was just more a really fun opportunity to just have fun with things that we hadn't really seen before, or too much of in the game before.

The Four Goblin Cartels Of Undermine

Bilgewater, Steamwheedle, Venture Company, And Blackwater

ScreenRant: With the four different goblin cartels, are we going to be able to see, within Undermine, different visual aesthetic kinds of distinctions between them, or are they more like the mafia and spread out? So hidden that it's not going to be able to tell?

Gabriel Gonzalez: Each cartel definitely has their own flavor, and it's evocative of the places where we've seen them in the past. For example, like Steamwheedle, we can see that cartel being all about poisons and alchemy, chemicals, and we see that represented in their different POIs. Their POI is the Vatworks, and you can see the entire space covered in this mysterious green goo. And, almost this, like industrial waste, almost.

The Bilgewater they're in, I think it's called Hovel Hill. They're all about creating. Using scrap parts to make these mechanical monstrosities. Blackwater, last time we'd seen them, they're like pirates, so it's like, Undermine can have pirates. They are the muscle that is used to harass people that are trying to ship goods over water, but now they're almost the shipping and receiving of Undermine.

And the Venture Company. Oh, I think the Venture Company are the guys in the Heaps. But that's just to illustrate the point, it's like each of their areas are going to have a nice, sort of thematic to it that is going to hearken back to the places where we saw them in the past, and where we saw them in Winterspring or Booty Bay, all those different areas, so definitely have a very unique flavor, and we're going to see that reflected in the city as well.

ScreenRant: I know this is probably a no, but I'm curious anyway, if someone is playing as a goblin, and they go into Undermine are they treated differently? Are there any different dialogues, or anything?

May Flores Garcia: I believe there are some unique interactions there. But yes, definitely give it a go to discover them.

The D.R.I.V.E. System's Speed Mechanics Are Specific For Undermine

Maybe Moving To Other Zones Someday

ScreenRant: Great! Okay, so now going to the new D.R.I.V.E. system, because I know that's a big thing for everyone. It's going to be providing a whole new, different type of ground mount system, essentially, with these fast, flashy cars. You kind of already touched on this, May, but how did this affect how the development team had to think about the whole area within the city?

May Flores Garcia: I think it was maybe more like a little bit of the opposite. This area being a city, Dragonriding or Skyriding didn't quite fit. This is a little bit of a smaller zone. It's very dense. So when we're thinking about movement and how we move in the area, what makes sense? It kind of makes a lot of sense, I mean, cars, right?

And it was something that had been kind of in the back of our minds: we wanted to eventually try something with ground mounts, kind of similar to Dragonriding. Everything kind of makes sense. But I could say it was a little bit of the opposite. It just makes a lot of sense for this patch and just for goblins and this is a perfect opportunity for us to start exploring something here.

ScreenRant: Were there any really unexpected hurdles that you had to overcome to make the D.R.I.V.E. system?

May Flores Garcia: Yes, I think one of the biggest ones for us were collisions. That is something that, when we built Skyriding, when you're flying, you have so much space to maneuver and move around, and if trees are really getting in your way, you can potentially just go a little bit higher where there's no trees, and you'll be good.

But when you're on the ground, you can definitely feel it if you're constantly colliding with stuff all over the place. So I think that was potentially one of our main challenges. Which is how do we do this without actually making it feel frustrating. Because I don't think we've had to actually revise our collision system in years now. So we even discovered some really, really old bugs in the process of trying to figure out, why are we getting stuck in this wall? It's like, oh, it was a bug introduced, like, 15 years ago. Well, okay, I guess we'll fix it now.

ScreenRant: I know the Skyriding mechanics ended up changing a lot of how all the flying mounts are handled throughout Azeroth, but with the gameplay mechanics of these new, fast cars, I mean, they're very different than just riding a turtle. So, do you foresee players being able to eventually have these cars in other zones? Or do you think that this is just going to be within the goblin Undermine city? I imagine driving these cars in, like, Stormwind would just be a headache for you.

May Flores Garcia: Yeah, I mean, for now, the plan is that this is very, a very unique mechanic for Undermine(d). Obviously, one of the things we want to see is player and the reception, and depending on that, we may consider if we want to actually try to extend it in some other ways. But for now, yes, as you say, we would have to consider how exactly it would play with other different kinds of mounts and stuff like that. So for now, it's very specific, right there for Undermine(d).

ScreenRant: With the D.R.I.V.E. system and the cars, I understand players are going to be able to customize not only the look of their cars, but also the stats. What kind of innovation had to go into making these stats customizable, and how much are we going to be able to actually see?

May Flores Garcia: So that's actually a pretty interesting question. So when we build D.R.I.V.E. and also Skyriding, oftentimes, on the engineering side, even though we're building the systems, we actually allowed for designers to be able to, basically, modify or tweak the systems.

So, for instance, for something that is very physics-[based] we actually have ways to be able to modify your max acceleration, how much you can drift because of the friction you're applying and all of that, just in the way we build the system we already kind of exposed to design. So really, in this case, it's just a matter for Design to expose that to players.

On the engineering side, it is not super complicated since we already built the system with that in mind. But depending on the design of how we want the players to interact with the system, then we may expose some of those behaviors to the players as well.

ScreenRant: Will we be able to have a Mario Kart-style race in the city? Or, how is that set up?

May Flores Garcia: So, we definitely have races in the city, very kind of similar and akin to, like to the skyriding races. There's also some very fun quests of us just kind of delivering things around the city. I don't know if we have anything like multiplayer, per se, that is very... I don't think we do, actually.

ScreenRant: From everything we've already talked about, I imagine that flying mounts aren't going to be working while underground, but how well will other ground mounts work in the area?

May Flores Garcia: Yes, we cannot Skyride in the area, but you can still use your normal ground mounts. So really, it's more like personal preference. Do you [want to] to get from point A to point B by using the D.R.I.V.E. system and having some game playing there, or [do you] just want to get into your normal ground mount and just do what you could normally do? The only difference is that you could go a little bit slower.

It's really about the stuff that's happening down at the ground level, right? - Gabriel Gonzalez

Gabriel Gonzalez: Yeah. I think the key there is that we really wanted to really immerse the player into the fantasy of this metropolis. And having the D.R.I.V.E. system be one of the main conduits for getting around the city, getting as many folks to participate in it.

It also lets you be as close to the flavor as possible. Where, if you're flying above it, when we're talking about a city, it's really about the streets. It's really about the stuff that's happening down at the ground level, right? So I think it really is just another lever that we use to really hone in on that epic fantasy of goblins.

Undermine(d) Had Many Imaginative Possibilities

Also Brann's New Tank Spec And New Raid

ScreenRant: What was your favorite thing, this is for both of you, what was your favorite thing about working on this whole patch?

Gabriel Gonzalez: I think for me, it was just, honestly, it's really just how strong the fantasy is for this. The types of things that we were exploring when we're thinking about what the ideal fantasy for this space would be, were really wide, and we like to explore a lot of different things.

At some point, we were looking at a jungle cruise that kind of led you into Undermine. We were exploring a fair that had roller coasters and some arena fights that were like big Rock 'em Sock 'em sort of robot fights. We were exploring a giant pinball machine, things that players would like run in. And I think that's something that is so unique to the goblin fantasy, it really just kind of inspires people to think outside the box, or, like, really push the ante.

I think that's something that is so unique to the goblin fantasy, it really just kind of inspires people to think outside the box. - Gabriel Gonzalez

What is really something unexpected, because that's kind of what you expect from goblins, that they're going to be consistently unexpected. They're going to make things that are maybe not super practical, that you didn't really assume that you would see in WoW before. They're not going to be built the right way, not necessarily built for safety. There's going to be a lot of explosions.

So, I think for me, it's just the entire experience was just super, super fun. But if I had to say a specific one, I would probably say the Central Station, which is the place where you arrive at. It's like a really neat introduction, making the setting for, "Oh, this is what the city is about."

May Flores Garcia: And for me, typically, I always get excited whenever we get to actually kind of push the limits of our engine, or going to a system and kind of try to rethink, "okay, we're doing something new, something unique. How do we do it?" We not only did that with D.R.I.V.E. for this patch, but we're also doing it for the character select screen.

One of the updates that we're having with Warbands is that you can customize your background. And actually, there's a couple of updates there, you can customize it, but also now basically have what we're calling camp sites. Which is, you can essentially say, '"Okay, I want these four characters with this background, and this is going to be my campsite one, but I'm going to create another group with with these other characters." So basically, we have more customization options.

And in order to create that, we had to go again. They took a little bit of refactoring on our end, but we're pretty happy that we're essentially offering more customization options there for players, which I think is something we wanted to do even from the very beginning, and we finally were able to offer some of that in 11.1.

ScreenRant: Is there anything else either of you wanted to touch on?

Gabriel Gonzalez: One that I wanted to mention that I'm super excited about, because I'm a big fan of delves, is Brann getting a tank spec. I mostly play as a healer, so I'm really excited to have somebody who's able to keep things off of me while we go through delves. So that's something that I'm super excited for.

May Flores Garcia: Yeah, and for me, as you know, with every major patch, we also have a new raid tier and a new mythic plus system. I typically like running Mythic+. That's something I'm very excited about. But I'm also very, very excited about the raid. I mean, it's explosions, so just the flavor of it is really, really cool. There's very unique fights on it too. I will be interested to see how players feel about our new raid tier.