The World of Warcraft drama is epic

The recent World of Warcraft drama is an amazing incident that shows how video games can actually transcend into real life and vice versa.

If you haven’t been following the World of Warcraft drama, you are missing out. Recently, Blizzard released an update which laid the groundwork for Battle for Azeroth expansion. And with it came the prologue, where the Elf City of Teldrassil was burned. Players knew about this fact months before the update was released. But what Blizzard did not tell them was who or what burned the city.

That is until now. In a recent short video, it was revealed that the Horde’s warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner was the one who gave the orders to burned down the night city. This caused the beginning of the World of Warcraft Drama.

You see, the factions, Horde and Alliance, have enmity in game and outside of it. It is quite evident in the WoW forums. And Blizzard had painted both these factions morally grey, instead of one being an evil faction and the other being the white knights. The Horde players are united by honour, and their warchiefs are some really honourable characters. But this revelation obviously painted the Horde as evil. This was against the Horde’s honour. This caused quite an uproar from the fans, especially the Horde players. Many even cancelled their WoW subscription. This was against what they stood for. But today, Blizzard gave them a new context, which caused the whole drama to turn tides.

“Saurfang for Warchief”

In a CG cinematic posted by Blizzard today, Varok Saurfang is seen contemplating the burning of Teldrassil. A troll mage, approaches him (whom the players are calling Zappyboi) and their conversation disillusions Saurfang. He is seen taking off his shoulder armour as a sign of Dissent against Sylvanas.

This cinematic finally acknowledged the real world dissent the players are having against Sylvanas. This finally gave them some context, and the players some hope that there are still those in the Horde leadership that will uphold their Honour. It is worth noting that Sylavanas is inherently portrayed as an evil character.

This cinematic has also lead to form of protest in WoW, where players have started to remove their shoulder armour. This is made possible due to WoW’s transmog system, where players can completely change the look of their armour, even making it ‘invisible’. There are posts on WoW subreddit which are encouraging the Horde players to bare their shoulders in honour of Saurfang.

This World of Warcraft drama shows how nuanced Blizzard’s storytelling is. It also shows that their storytelling is a bit inconsistent. They moved from animated shorts to CG cinematics, and they even have books and novellas that provide key context for the lead up to Battle for Azeroth. This makes it quite difficult to understand every character’s  motivations and keep track of the story.