We think we found the location of the spooky World of Warcraft game mode… and it’s not Duskwood

One of the more mysterious announcements in today’s State of Azeroth livestream was a new standalone game mode that will go live with WoW patch 12.1.7 sometime this autumn. Details were scarce, with the only really juicy tidbit coming in the form of a single image depicting a town square crumbling under the influence of some sort of greenish-blue magic.

Plunderstorm was World of Warcraft’s first separate game mode, with installments of the pirate-themed battle royale in 2024 and 2025. At PAX East 2025, Blizzard teased another upcoming game mode that would stand on its own — this one with a vibe more along the lines of a scary story. The teaser image during that reveal was an in-game shot of Darkshire in Duskwood, which would certainly qualify as a spooky setting for a new event.

Today’s standalone mode announcement and the accompanying ominous art brought to mind the creepy vibes of Duskwood, but a closer look raised doubts. Flying over the rooftops of Darkshire made me wonder if we would actually be heading to a different sinister location on Azeroth for the new minigame. I didn’t find any good matches among the Worgen settlements and towns, but the buildings in the teaser image reminded me of Kul Tiran architecture.

After scouting out a few different towns, I believe that we will be headed to Upper Corlain in Drustvar, just outside of Waycrest Manor. The overall layout is very close, there is a road leading to a circular feature in the bottom right, and the turreted building in the top left is a good match. The color of the magic destroying the town aligns with that of the death magic wielded by Gorak Tul, the entity responsible for the local corruption. It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s my guess for which location is represented in the teaser image after thorough investigation of the spooky towns of Azeroth.

This would certainly make a great setting for an eerie new game mode. As for what we’ll be doing, it’s still anyone’s guess. The new Prop Hunt mini game seems more like a lighthearted hide-and-seek, so with a darker theme we could guess that this spine-chilling installment could be a murder mystery of some sort. Plunderstorm involved 100 players in a free-for-all, so a similarly huge game mode could involve two teams working to complete (or thwart) an evil ritual to re-summon Gorak Tul to Drustvar once again.

So are you excited for this fall’s new spooky game mode? Do you think we’ll be headed to Upper Corlain, or do you have another theory on the supernatural setting we’ll be in?