A mysterious World of Warcraft teaser has people wondering if an animated show is on its way

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But I'm betting it's a short, rather than a full-blown series.

An orc bellows a mighty battlecry.
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Given World of Warcraft: The War Within is coming out August 26, the marketing machine is spinning its wheels into a hype frenzy—there's this very gorgeous 2D cinematic that has me genuinely excited to see Xal'atath chew some scenery, Khadgar firing a very big laser, and the promise of "a new experience in Dalaran" arriving for testing on the beta today.

New Dalaran shenanigans aren't the only thing Blizzard's teasing. There's also this short clip of a fully-animated 2D mystery thing captioned, simply: "Soon™."

Considering the scale and production at play here, this has some commenters buzzing about a potential animated TV series in the works—and while that would be super cool, the smart money's on a humble animated short for a few different reasons.

The animation style here looks super similar to Heroes of the Storm animations created via Titmouse, an animation studio that's done a ton of work across the gaming industry—and outside of it, too. It's got a prolific portfolio that includes D&D-livestream-turned-franchise The Legend of Vox Machina among many others. There's no solid confirmation that it is them, of course, but it's got the studio's flavour about it, and we know Blizzard's worked with Titmouse before.

The logo at the end of the teaser specifically calls out the expansion itself—which is pretty telling that it's designed to market that rather than tease an animated series.

Lastly, (via WoWHead's frame-by-frame analysis) the battle is taking place in Quel'thalas, most likely before it fell to the Scourge—the elves all have blue eyes, which means they haven't gone to the Sunwell for some sippies yet. Most importantly, though, we see Alleria Windrunner—who is going to be a major player in the expansion itself.

As such, this is looking like a pre-expansion animation that goes into Alleria's past for the unfamiliar, rather than its own full-fat standalone series, especially considering this is the first whisper of it we've had until now. May I eat humble pie for a 60 minute embarrassment debuff if I'm wrong.

If the reception is good, though, I'm sure the studio'd be pleased to flesh out Warcraft's extensive lore into a full show. And if Blizzard is serious about polishing up its story, it'd be a great alternative to saying "hey, go play these ancient strategy games".

Harvey Randall
Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.