Undermine, the goblin trading hub set to debut in Patch 11.1, has a long and fascinating history. Concept maps from the early days of World of Warcraft reveal that Blizzard planned this zone well before the game launched in 2004. Let’s look at these maps, sorted by timeline, to uncover Undermine’s development journey.
1999: Chris Metzen’s Hand-Painted Maps
The earliest known map of WoW’s world was painted by Chris Metzen in 1999, during the game’s conceptual stages. It includes Undermine, showing how the goblin city was envisioned as part of Azeroth from the very beginning! The red arrows show travel between the zones.
The very same map was painted on the wall of the Team 2 area by Chris Metzen in 1999!
A dedicated concept map of Undermine reveals how Blizzard planned the zone as a vast goblin underworld.
Early 2000s: The Pre-Alpha World Map
In the early 2000s, during WoW’s pre-alpha stage, a map surfaced with the planned level cap set at 70. Undermine appears here, marked in white, as one of the zones intended to be part of the game world at launch.
2002-2003: Planned Instance Map
A detailed map from 2002-2003 outlines all planned instances for WOW, using a code system to classify difficulty: N (noob), L (low), M (medium), H (heroic), U (uber). The green island in the center is Undermine.
2024-2025: The Current Map of the Undermine
Here’s the map Blizzard created for the upcoming zone in the next patch. It’s clearly smaller than originally envisioned, but it’s still exciting to see a patch that dives into goblin culture!
Thanks to UndeadMurky for the maps.
