Midnight’s Haranir Are Making Other Playable Races Look Bad

World of Warcraft: Midnight is adding the Haranir as a new playable Allied race. These reclusive subterranean naturalists dwell in Harandar, one of the new zones in the expansion, where they watch over the roots of the World Trees, and the former cradle of their goddess, Aln’hara. After their appearance in The War Within, many World of Warcraft fans hoped the Haranir would become playable, and in Midnight, those dreams are becoming a reality.

With a robust set of customization options, the Haranir are perfect for players who like to design unique characters. What’s more, even their Druid shapeshifting forms have a number of customizable features. Fans of the newest allied race in World of Warcraft are eating well in Midnight – but unfortunately, most of the other playable races are being left to starve.

World of Warcraft is Giving Haranir a Lot of Love in Midnight

How World of Warcraft’s New Allied Race Leaves Others In the Dust

The Haranir get a lot of customization options. In total, they have 29 (28 for body type 1) different choices to make, ranging from staples like hairstyles and face shapes to unique options, including fur patterns, spines, and even eyelashes. On top of that, their staple options go deeper than most other races; their 18 stunning hair options include tons of fantastic black styles and a colorway for highlights, and their eyes reflect light in a mesmerizing way.

Most of the other playable races simply cannot compare to this breadth of customization. While the Dracthyr from WoW: Dragonflight actually dwarf the Haranir, with 42 different categories to browse for their draconic form alone, every other race has far fewer. The likes of Humans and Orcs can make up the difference by the sheer number of options within each category, but most have fewer than half of what the Haranir get. Some races, including core options like the Gnomes and Undead, Allied races like Dark Iron Dwarves and Vulpera, and even the Blood Elves, who are front and center in Midnight, don’t even break into the double digits.

It gets worse. Druids are central to the Haranir fantasy, and like other races, they have unique shapeshifting forms, including a wolverine-like bear form, a bat flying form, and an axolotl aquatic form. However, all of their transformations can be customized as well, with mix-and-match fur and feather colors, plus ear, nose, and gill shapes depending on the form. While players can customize a generic Moonkin form for their Balance Druids as of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Patch 10.2, no other race-specific shapeshifting forms have this level of detail.

While these options are without a doubt amazing, they serve to highlight the growing gulf between playable races. Like the Dracthyr before them, the Haranir got a deluge of attention from the development team, which leaves the other races in World of Warcraft neglected.

It Is Time For a Model and Customization Revamp in World of Warcraft

Ultimately, the Haranir highlight World of Warcraft‘s desperate need for a new model and customization revamp. Save the Worgen and Goblins, which were updated in Battle for Azeroth after arriving in Cataclysm, the last model update in World of Warcraft was during Warlords of Draenor in 2014. Meanwhile, the major customization overhaul in WoW: Shadowlands dates back to 2020. In comparison, the brand-new models and abundance of customization options for the Haranir and Dracthyr put most of the earlier races to shame.

Theoretically, World of Warcraft could be cooking up such a revamp as a feature for or after World of Warcraft: The Last Titan, and it just wants to finish every race before rolling them out, but there is no evidence that such an overhaul is in the works. Regardless, World of Warcraft cannot keep pouring all of its attention into the newest playable races while leaving its old classics out to dry, or risk the community’s ire reaching a boiling point.

Systems

Released

2026

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op

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