With Shadowlands Season 4 bringing Grimrail Depot to the Mythic+ rotation, Blizzard fixed motion sickness problems in the dungeon

Shadowlands Season 4, which just arrived alongside patch 9.2.5, includes new Mythic+ dungeons from this expansion as well as Battle for Azeroth, Legion, and Warlords of Draenor. The dungeons from Shadowlands, BFA, and Legion expansions are the mega dungeons Tazavesh, Mechagon and Return to Karazhan, each getting both wings into the rotation. But Warlords, Blizzard ran a poll on which dungeons to include, and the players voted for Grimrail Depot and Iron Docks.

The addition of these two dungeons this led Maizou, a player on the WoW Community Council, to make an excellent post pointing out that some of us with motion sickness problems can barely run Grimrail Depot, due to the moving background that creates the feeling of being on a moving train in the dungeon. I have hated this dungeon for this reason since I first ran it — try tanking this thing while also feeling like you’re going to retch yourself into a permanent pretzel shape. It is not fun. During Warlords of Draenor I did exactly four Grimrail runs, and each put me on the floor waiting for everything to stop spinning for at least half an hour. I’m super glad Maizou made this post.

And I’m even more glad that CM Bornakk responded with a solution to the motion sickness issue in Grimrail Depot.

The case of motion sickness in Grimrail Depot is fairly unique: it’s a result of the background moving around the area designated as the train, while you’re not actually moving at all. By minimizing the background movement, encounters in Grimrail Depot play out like any other fight in fixed terrain. Blizzard has applied a similar technique to Maw of Souls, filling in a flat background for the swaying ocean. It’s not a solution that will work for every case of motion sickness, but it’s a good start.

I’m just excited that maybe I can actually run the dungeon this time without almost losing the contents of my stomach all over my keyboard and monitor. Here’s to hoping that Blizzard takes a look at other dungeons and fights with issues like this one — Spine of Deathwing comes to mind — and comes up with equally creative solutions to the issues of those encounters and dungeons. Those of us who spend a lot of time forced to stare at the floor to avoid motion sickness will thank you.

This is an excellent fix to a persistent accessibility issue. Well done, Ken from the WoW encounter design team.

Originally posted April 1, 2022. Updated August 3, 2022.