Having any big-name character bite it in a long-running game like an MMO is a toughie—obviously, you want your stories to have stakes, or else your players are going to tune out by the ninth fakeout. On the other hand, if you do it wrong, then everyone's going to be insufferably mad at you for the rest of the game's lifespan. Which, for a two-decade-plus game like WoW, is gonna be a while.
That doesn't mean World of Warcraft isn't going to keep trying, mind you. The Worldsoul Saga is one of Blizzard's most ambitious moves yet—committing to a three-expansion story arc where everything's been more-or-less planned out, giving them the chance to tell larger, bigger-reaching narratives.
Heather spoke to both game director Ion Hazzikostas and design director Maria Hamilton about Midnight, the midpoint of the Worldsoul Saga—and both WoW leads emphasised that the team is winding up for some big swings.
"There will be important characters that do not survive the trilogy. It’ll be a lot of death, I’m afraid," Hamilton explains. "Those are hard decisions. We have arguments about, ‘Is this the right time? What will we do with that person gone?’" Hamilton didn't spill on who might be getting merked by Xal'atath—which is fair enough.
"Sometimes Chekhov’s Gun, or Chekhov’s Sword as the case may be," says Hazzikostas, "Is going to lie there for a couple of expansions before something comes of it. Get used to that." When are we going to talk about the sword, Ion? I've been dying to talk about the sword.
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