World of Warcraft: Midnight's new solo-friendly Prey mode will have bosses attacking you out of nowhere: 'There's going to be some really mean stuff that we're going to do to you'

(Thanks to the player Sykeen, who provided some of the screenshots used in this article.)

Prey, World of Warcraft: Midnight's new open-world system, will have bosses attacking you out of nowhere come the expansion's launch on March 2.

We spoke with Blizzard game designer Noah Smith, an informal lead on Prey, about what to expect. It's primarily designed for mid-core players, he says: People who like to seek out a challenge in open-world content and the solo-dungeon style encounters of Delves. But the difficulty of Prey ramps up quickly, and top-end encounters should provide challenges even for mythic-geared raiders, should they decide to become the hunted.

"Prey is inherently an overlay system," Smith says. "So regardless of the content you engage with in the open world, you will also be dealing with Prey."

Pick your target and become the hunted

Players interact with an NPC in Silvermoon city to pick their difficulty, zone, and target from a collection of 30 bosses. World quests specific to Prey will pop up in the zone, and the area will be empowered with torments that make killing things—for those quests or anything you want to do in the zone—more difficult. In that way, it's similar to the Heroic outdoor world difficulty in the currently-running Legion Remix game mode, though it's not the same system.

But anytime you're in combat you're a legitimate target, and this is where Prey truly gets its name: not from the mob you're hunting, but because that boss is now hunting you. Your target will attack when you're occupied with other mobs and least expecting it. Watch out for the gnomes, Smith says: They do like their shrink rays... and to stomp on tiny heroes.

"We don't want it to feel like you're doing a series of check marks and then getting to the final thing," Smith explains. "We didn't want to make it feel like there's any one specific thing you should be doing above anything else."

Engage or not: It's up to you

Players will generally stack up their Prey targets to align with other open-world activities they need to do, including regular world quests, gathering and the like. You do need to be fighting to trigger the appearance of the target, but that's because of difficulties other than Nightmare (where time limits and more tortuous challenges await), Blizzard wanted to make it generally safe to AFK.

Prey counts toward the open-world row in the weekly vault of random loot players can choose from, and in that way, hardcore raiders or PvPers shouldn't feel obligated to engage with it—but it will make those open-world tasks you have to do anyway more fun, he promises. You can drop Prey mode at any time by abandoning the quest and picking it up later.

The system is intended to be solo content, so any afflictions you get should only affect you, unless a friend decides to lend a hand, Smith says.

"If you're on a Nightmare mode Prey hunt and your friend is not interacting with the system at all, you can stand on top of each other and your buddy will be okay unless they tag in, and they are now involved and helping you."

As a result, the Torments are personally focused: mobs that fixate on you, seeping gore that drops when an enemy dies will only cause damage to you, and so on.

"You don't want to walk in front of someone and catch the spear that's being thrown at them by the troll over there," Smith says.

Smith's pro tip: Get ready to murder critters

The quest-giver Astalor Bloodsworn will pop up periodically during your hunts and make demands, as well, adding to the difficulty. That's where those tiny level 1 critters come in, Smith says, giving players his best pro tip: One of the NPC's demands is for you to quickly slay a random enemy. But he doesn't say how big the enemy has to be.

"You're running around and Astalor says, 'Kill for me,' " Smith says, doing his best imitation of the blood elf's rolling tones. "Pop a squirrel! You're good. Astalor cares not from whence the anguish comes."

As you kill targets in Prey, you'll make progress on a player journey, similar to Delver's Journey progress that unlocks as you do those small dungeons. Higher difficulties and rewards will unlock, until you're facing the most-difficult content Prey has to offer. That's going to be flat-out rough at the beginning, Smith says.

"There's going to be some really mean stuff that we're going to do to you on expansion launch," he says with a laugh. But it'll get easier as you go, he says. "We're not scaling. If you're a mythic-geared raider, you should be able to feel good at taking on Nightmare mode targets pretty regularly. You're just not going to get there very quickly."