World of Warcraft’s next allied race could be Kul Tiran humans (update)

At BlizzCon 2017, the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth developers announced six new allied races — Nightborne Elves, Highmountain Tauren, Zandalari Trolls, Void Elves, Lightforged Draenei and Dark Iron Dwarves — are coming to WoW. Since then, the Mah’Gar Orcs have been announced as the fourth race for Horde players.

Now, it looks like Alliance players may be getting a new variety of human as their fourth race.

In a recent update to the Battle for Azeroth alpha, the models for the Kul Tiran Human’s Druid Bear Form ability was datamined. This is huge news for Alliance players who have felt a little left out of the cool allied race announcements. Not only will the Alliance be getting a new variety of humans, those humans will also be able to be Druids, a class that has previously only been playable by Worgens, Night Elves, Taurens and Trolls.

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The unique Druid forms of the Kul Tirans are similar to those of the Zandalari Trolls we saw a few weeks ago.

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• Blizzard Entertainment
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• Blizzard Entertainment
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• Blizzard Entertainment
• Blizzard Entertainment

Above is a small collection of the customization assets we have for Kul Tiran humans.

The Kul Tiran humans are the people that inhabit the Alliance-allied island of Kul Tiras and are the people of the famous Mage, Jaina Proudmoore. This is where Alliance players will spend their leveling time and the Kul Tiran humans will be their quest givers. It seems likely that Alliance players will be able to recruit the Kul Tiran humans to their cause by the end of Battle for Azeroth.

But there’s a reason people are excited about new humans. Ordinarily, this would be a boring reveal, but the Kul Tiran humans are pretty different from their vanilla WoW cousins. As you can see from the gallery above, the Kul Tirans come in several different shapes and sizes and have a nautical theme to their attire. Humans in WoW are pretty bland currently, but the Kul Tiran aesthetic is finally interesting enough to get players excited to make someone who looks just like them.

While it’s unclear whether or not the Kul Tiran humans will become a real allied race, chances are looking better than ever. Polygon has reached out to Blizzard regarding an official announcement of the Kul Tiran humans as a playable allied race.

Update: In Blizzard’s Live Developer Q&A from March 15, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed (rather flippantly) that the Kul Tirans will be a new allied race.

When asked about possible new allied races in the future, Ion mentions the Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tirans as already announced races. In the Q&A he also mentions that the Zandalari will not be available right away and that Horde players will have to earn their trust. While we aren’t certain yet, it’s probably safe to assume that the same will be true for Alliance players and the Kul Tirans.