World of Warcraft: Midnight’s first major update, patch 12.1: The Curse of Ula’tek, will replace traditional open-world bosses with instanced “lairs”. Blizzard says the change should make encounters easier to access and more engaging, addressing the current tendency for large groups to defeat bosses within seconds before other players can participate.

Players will travel to a designated location and queue for a lair as they would for a raid or dungeon, rather than encounter bosses while exploring. The new format is intended to support more complex mechanics and difficulty choices, reaching Mythic for groups of 15–25 players; it launches on 11 August.