World of Warcraft: Midnight will introduce a 'Prey' system, and by jove, I think Blizzard might be close to fixing the MMO's open-world difficulty problem

World of Warcraft: Midnight's coming—the hour, nearly upon us—and while player housing is the marquee feature, I'm actually super hyped about another system Blizzard's cooking up, as well, dubbed "Prey", revealed this year at Gamescom 2025.

We've all been there. You need to do your dailies. You log on. You start flying around, and a faint malaise sets in. See, you push Mythic+ keys and raid on the daily—you're dressed to the nines in the best gear and, most importantly, you know the mysterious art of 'pushing your buttons in the right order' and 'not standing in the fire'.

An uneasiness starts to sink in. The dreaded wrath as a thought settles into your mind: "Eh, I'm bored." I'm not a hardcore raider—I beat four Savage raid fights in Final Fantasy 14 (Pandæmonium's first tier) in pick-up groups. This has irrevocably scarred me and I don't want to do it again.

But I am a soulslike freak, which means I like a challenge. One of my biggest obstacles to enjoying MMOs as much as I'd like to is the doldrum of the daily grind—which is what Prey seems poised to fix.

As explained in this YouTube short on the game's official channels, players will be able to pick a target and a difficulty—normal, hard, or nightmare. Upon doing so, their Prey will "strike at any time—mid-quest, running between objectives, fishing, it doesn't matter." It's similar to how, in the Undermine(d) patch, the delve boss would occasionally drop out of nowhere to try and give you a butt-whooping.

Prey hunts will be a smidge more involved, though, putting you through a series of encounters and ambushes. On hard and nightmare modes, you'll also be locked into a 1v1 arena with your target—which sounds awesome.

I'm personally hoping spectators will still be allowed to watch these fights, since one of my favourite bits of FF14's Bozja zones were the "duels" lone players could get locked into. Watching with popcorn was always a hoot.

There'll also be non-gear rewards too: Housing items, cosmetics, mounts, the works.

Honestly? If Blizzard pulls off this system, it sounds like a huge W. Opting into harder random battles in the open world feels like the perfect compromise when it comes to giving us masochists something to chew on while doing our daily rep grinds. I can't wait to have a heart-attack when my Nemesis—er, sorry—Prey target comes barreling out of the underbrush to take my lunch money.