After 6 years, World of Warcraft's Haranir basically requires a feature to be reworked

This article was updated by Andrea Trama on March 24, 2026, citing patch 12.0.5's new customization options. It was first published on March 17.

World of Warcraft: Midnight is finally here, escalating the battle against Xal'atath as it unfolds across four new zones, including regenerations of the Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman. Among the many features added in the expansion, one of the most exciting is the Haranir, a new allied race. These wild elf-like creatures live in Harandar, one of the expansion's new areas, where they tend to the roots of the world trees. Naturally one of the biggest draws to Haranir i World of Warcraft is their breadth of wonderful character customization options.

In fact, some might say Haranir has gotten too much love when it comes to customization. From body hair and foot shape to eyelashes and feathers, Haranir have two, three, or even four times as many ways to customize characters compared to most core and allied races. Attention to detail World of Warcraft gave Haranir has made it painfully obvious that character customization needs an overhaul, the likes of which it hasn't seen since 2020.

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World of Warcraft Reveals Midnight Patch 12.0.5

After the release of World of Warcraft: Midnight, Blizzard is already pulling back the curtain on what's coming in the next update.

Haranir Customization Options Put other WoW races to shame

Two to four times as many customization categories as most other races in World of Warcraft

Haranir in World of Warcraft have a huge number of ways they can be customized, with a total of 29 different categories (28 for body type 2). These range from customization materials such as hairstyles and faces to unique options including backs, fur patterns, foot shape and even eyelashes. Also, most of these categories have tons of choices; for example, they have 18 different hairstyles for each body type, including some of the best black hair textures in the game, and optional highlights. Additionally, their eyes have a fascinating reflective quality that no other race has.

This new race has more customization options than almost any other race in the game, Dractyr from WoW: Dragonflight is the only exception. In fact, over half of the races have half as many alignment categories as just the Haranir. While some compensate for this by having many different options in their individual categories, such as the 34 hairstyles or 45 faces for body type 2 people, most are not so lucky. Some, including classic core races like Undead and Gnomes as well as Allied Races i World of Warcraft like Dark Iron Dwarves and Vulpera, don't even break into the double digit customization categories.

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If this wasn't serious enough, Haranir also has unique, customizable druid forms. At the Barber Shop, Haranir Druids can mix and match details, including fur color or ear and nose shape, on their wolverine bear form, bat-flying form, axolotl water form, and others. Most Haranir Druid forms even have unique animations and dance moves. While every Druid in World of Warcraft can customize his Moonkin form from now on Dragonflight Patch 10.2, no other race can adapt their other druid forms like the Haranir can.

While fans have certainly enjoyed creating Haranir characters, the sheer amount of attention they've received has felt more than a little unfair. The Blood Elves and Void Elves are some of the most prominent races in this expansion, with the Sin'dorei capital of Silvermoon being the main hub of Wow expansion. Despite this, neither race received any new adaptations – they're both stuck in a narrow number of categories that fit on a single page, except for female Blood Elves, which barely run out in a second. The breadth of options given to Haranir in the “Elf Expansion” pours more salt into the wound and highlights the need for a massive customization overhaul.

The last one World of Warcraft customization overhaul was in Shadowlands back in 2020. This update gave players a lot more control, as they could now disconnect faces, eye colors and more. New options for scars, blind eyes, and even upright orcs brought plenty of praise to the game, though World of Warcraft expansion's otherwise lukewarm reception. There have been some additional customization options for existing races since then, such as glowing hands for the Nightborne, Man'ari skin tones for the Draenei, and Amani skin tones for the Trolls, but not nearly as large-scale as in Shadowlands.

Image via Blizzard

While Dractyr, Earthen and Haranir all look good, older race models are starting to show their age again. It has actually been longer in between Warlords of Draenors model renew in 2014 and now than between that and the release of World of Warcraft 2004. Needless to say, it is time for World of Warcraft to give its other races the same care it has given the Haranir and Draktyr before them.

New customization options are coming to World of Warcraft

But it may take a long time for Blizzard to come around

Fortunately, fans are not completely without hope in this regard. During a recent interview with Windows Central, World of Warcraft design director Maria Hamilton and lead artist Jay Hwang confirmed that more customizations are on Blizzard's radar. What more, rather than small batches here and there as well World of Warcraft did with its Heritage Armor sets, Blizzard hopes to implement these changes into a large project, meaning players could see another overhaul of the level Shadowlands eventually.

Image via Blizzard

However, World of Warcraft could go deeper than that; Hamilton teased the idea of ​​customizing spells and animations as well. There have been examples of this in the past through glyphs, toys or the beloved Green Fire mission from Mists of Pandariabut these options do not play well together and are not intuitive. If Blizzard can sort out all of these systems and fuse them together, fans may eventually be able to embody the fantasy of a Night Elf Priestess of the Moon, Tauren Sunwalker, or some other iconic World of Warcraft class archetypes.

Image via Blizzard

That said, players should temper their expectations for now. Hamilton and Hwang emphasized that this project is still in early development and does not have an exact roadmap for when it will arrive World of Warcraft. It may be years or more before fans see the fruits of this labor.

Either way, there is a promise of great things on the horizon. The updated Transmog system from WoW: Midnight has been a huge boon, and Blizzard plans to continue iterating on it in the future. One day, players may be able to use this system to control all sorts of aspects of their characters, including animations, sounds, and particle effects. Until then, fans will have to enjoy Haranir's moment in the sun and hope so World of Warcrafts possible changes could begin to bridge the gap between the playable races.

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Released

March 2, 2026

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Teen / Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence, User Interaction, In-Game Purchases

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