The mostly horrible, sometimes hilarious results of arachnophobia mode in WoW

One of the new accessibility features released ahead of World of Warcraft‘s upcoming expansion, The War Within, is an arachnophobia mode that turns WoW enemies utilizing the spider NPC model into either the traditional crab model or the lobstrok models. One of the main antagonist factions in The War Within is a sect of resurgent nerubians led by Queen Ansurek who have been altered in some way by the Void, facilitated in partnership with Xal’atath.

Since the nerubians are a spider-like enemy, coupled with The War Within taking place inside Azeroth, this mode was created to alleviate some of the stress and anxiety players may experience when facing this specific enemy, while the subterranean zones of The War Within were crafted to feel like the player wasn’t enclosed underground. Right now, this mode works mainly for the spider enemies and scorpion enemy models remain untouched, even though they are arachnids.

However, there’s designing something in theory and then there’s implementing it. I have no doubt that this feature was created with the best of intentions, but there are some unintended, horribly but kind of hilarious side effects that have appeared because of arachnophobia mode and we’ve put together a small list of what they look like.

This is your trigger warning. 

We may have traded one phobia for another

While walking through the Arachnid Quarter of Naxxramas my level 70 Druid was mobbed on by legions of crab enemies and yes — they do keep that stupid web trick and yank you in different directions. I’m not afraid of spiders, nor am I afraid of crabs, but in an effort to spare people from spiders, we may condition them to fear crabs instead.

Not all crustaceans are created (horrifically) equal

I checked on Maexxna as I continued through Naxx and with this mode it has a distinctly different, slightly more terrifying, crab model with protruding spikes jutting out of its chitin. Recolors of this crab model also appear to affect Rare Elites throughout Azeroth, like Beshol in Drustvar. Good thing Beshol is no longer a spider because instead of facing a large pair of pincers, players now have to stare into a gaping maw of teeth.

Some enemies remain unaffected

Certain enemies, like Sennarth from Vault of the Incarnates, were able to evade the power of game developers and remain distinctly arachnid but at least their minions got hit with the crab-morphing hammer.

It’s more about how the legs look when they move

Shadra, one of the large spider NPCs in Nazmir, is still strung up and at a glance, they still kind of look like a spider and the top-down view promoting all of the legs moving side to side doesn’t really help.

Now, these are humorous exceptions — the mode works quite well for most enemies! Interestingly enough, while scrolling through the in-game Adventurer’s Guide, I noticed that some the nerubian enemies in The War Within’s first raid, Nerub’ar Palace, don’t appear to be affected by arachnophobia mode but we’ll see once The War Within launches on August 26.