World of Warcraft’s Worldsoul Saga is gonna be a big’un—in case phrases like “Midnight”, “The Last Titan”, or, indeed, “Worldsoul” were any indication, this trio of expansion packs are focusing on some pretty intense story beats. The void wielded by Xal’atath, harbinger of the old gods; the Sunwell, a font of incredible power, under threat. It’s all very endgame.
Spectacle creep has been something WoW’s struggled with for some time, so much so that Dragonflight was a much-needed reset button. For example, the expansion preceding it, Shadowlands, saw you going to the actual afterlife—and it mostly lost people when a big guy in armour said “pitiful mortal” several dozen times.
Speaking to PC Gamer’s own Elie Gould at Gamescom this year, art director Ely Cannon and technical director Frank Kowalkowski have both shared an eagerness to get back to the local stories that really stick with players; using the Worldsoul Saga as a means to tie off all the epic fantasy stuff with a neat bow.
“I hope that we can get back to telling the story of the people of Azeroth, and step back from some of the cosmic, big, threatening world ending things and really start talking about local stories,” Cannon explains. “I think, again, [player housing] is going to be another place where we start to do that and really embrace ‘What is the story of the people, what’s the story of the player’.”
Player housing’s definitely gonna be a big’un—not least of all because Blizzard seems to basically be nailing it thus far, all but beating up certain other MMO’s restrictive housing demolition systems and taking their lunch money.
He continues: “As people, it’s easier for us to step into a world with stories that are at a scale that we can understand on an instinctual level. We all have experiences that we bring into any game world that we’re going into, and the more believable the stories, the more personal they are … the more you can step in and say ‘I believe this place, I can live here’.”
It’s especially something Cannon’s keen to use as an in-road for new players, who might not know who Anduin is and why he’s so sad about his past, or why Alleria Windrunner is so sad about her husband, or why Khadgar is so sad about Dalaran, or why—you get the idea.
“Especially with new players. The more stories we’ve told over the years, the bigger the narrative has become, the more heroes and villains and overarching threats that people have to process,” but as for a post-Last Titan world, Cannon says: “I think it’s going to create a lot of in-points for people going forward that are new to our world and want to come in and experience it for the first time, and do it in a very understandable and grounded way.”
Kowalkowski brings up a great example of Blanchy—a beloved old horse who was unceremoniously shivved in Cataclysm by Vanessa VanCleef’s goons. And then was in hell, for some reason. I’m not making this up—one of the many confusing story decisions of the much-maligned Shadowlands, if you ask me.
Creating these little micro moments that everyone’s always going to remember.”
Technical Director, Frank Kowalkowski
“I think WoW’s narrative is kind of rewarding on multiple levels, right? We have this massive cosmic battle against Xal’atath and the forces of the void. And everything that’s coming in both Midnight and The Last Titan. But we also have, like back in Vanilla finding a pouch of oats for Blanchy … creating these little micro moments that everyone’s always going to remember.
“It kinda gives you that personal reward of having made an impact on that poor starving horse’s life”—Kowalkowski is very much ignoring the fact Blanchy canonically went to hell, here—”but you also get to play the role of an epic hero as you are fighting these cosmic forces.”
As someone who thoroughly enjoyed The War Within’s sidequests, I honestly get it. Some of the most well-remembered WoW quests are those personal moments—Mankrik’s Wife, Illidan telling the Light to piss off in Legion, The War Within’s tear-jerker of a quest about Caretaker Korgran. Hell, Arthas, one of the game’s best villains, was liked because of how personally motivated his story was.
WoW’s always been an MMO utterly obsessed with world-ending stakes, and that’s part of the charm, but hearing this feels like a great sign of what’s to come.
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