So I’ve bitched and whined about Fear and Loathing in Cataclysm Classic. That was not, strictly speaking, the extent of what Holly Longdale had to announce, nor what we were really there for. She also brought in Chris Metzen, who announced Big Things. So let’s have a look.

Not One, but Three Expansions

First of all, Chris Metzen played everyone like a fish. He had Blizzcon eating out of his hand. The marriage of Something Old and Familiar with Something Exciting and New was intoxicating to the audience. He exploited this with more skill than I thought he had in him, to be honest. Well played, Chris.

But then was the big drop, namely “The World Soul Saga“.

Let’s break that down. It’s a saga, see, about a world soul, see.

Kidding!

Okay, first of all, the chutzpah of calling a series of expansions a “saga“. I get it. When Pokemon can have a saga, when candy can have a crushing saga, I guess something as impressive-sounding as a “world soul” can have a saga. In this case, possibly the term is appropriate. The first two cases, no. Probably not.

But anyway, this, coupled with the announcement trailer, implies that we’re dealing with world-soul-adjacent matters for the duration.

I like to call this bit “Sword? What sword? Oh, THAT sword!” How long has it been? Legion? That’s a bit of a time.

At any rate, here are a few observations.

• Good lort, Blizz has stepped up their cinematic game by at least an order of magnitude. The quality of this cinematic is the same level as the Warcraft movie itself. Somebody give these people a script and we have a movie on our hands. Seriously. Please.
• Anduin’s anguish is obvious and well depicted. Far better than it was at the end of Shadowlands. I appreciate that this could imply that his anguish needed time to “cook”, and that’s cool. Ish.
• The emergence of Varian’s theme in connection with Anduin is once again asserted, and it’s done well.
• WTF could have beaten Anduin down so much in the ensuing time between the end of Shadowlands and now? I mean, sure, I guess being dominated by this big bad guy is really a life-altering situation, but is that the extent of it? His breakdown feels a lot more personal than we’ve been privy to.
• Did *anyone* think to consult Magni or are they just going to pretend that the crystaline Dwarven King is out at Vegas doubling down on red?
• I actually thought this made sense while drunk on cheap tequila. On day 3 of tequila-induced trauma, I’m getting close to the POST button.

Okay, let’s let the cheap tequila work its way out. Given the current state of the vlogosphere, is that really a bad thing?

The upshot of the cinematic is that both Anduin and Thrall (and, presumably, others) are being plagued by messages from an Unknown Entity, which we know to be Azeroth Actual. And, while Magni was not featured, we, as Azerotian Denizens, know he should be on the low-down with Azeroth Actual, and I wonder, as we are wont to do, why he wasn’t very prominent in this particular cinimatic. Like”Uh, yeah. Guys? Hello?”

I mean, if you missed it a few expansions back, he actually became a Diamond Dwarf and had Intimate Contact with Azeroth Actual.

I’m sorry, but aside from “Sword, what sword?”, the Buried Lede of this is “Magni is tired or shouting, would you like to listen to Magni?” is possibly the most obvious plot point EVAR. Yeah. Let’s listen to Magni.

Right now I’m thinking that this is where we should have gone instead of the Dragon Isles. I could easily go the rest of my life without seeing the Dragon Isles. Let them stay hidden. I’m cool. I’m also pretty sure I’d be okay without Shadowlands if this is where we went instead, to be honest. Really, everything since Legion feels like filler and that’s a bit of a problem.

After Legion, there was this gigantic “and now what?” that nobody would address. Nobody at Blizzard at the time seemed to have a genuine idea about what to do next. “There’s a giant sword stuck into the planet” does not, in most cases, lead to “hey let’s go explore the realm of Death”. Nor does it lead to “hey, let’s go chase dragons!”.

I’m personally annoyed that something as obvious as “a giant sword stuck into the planet that we know to be alive and kicking” was somehow not an obvious jumping off point for the writers. Here we are, a few expansions later, possibly addressing that.

I am still hesitant to instantly credit Chris Metzen with this change of direction, but it really feels like a heel-turn after the malaise-era of the past two expansions. I’m not in the Chris-Metzen-Is-A-Freekin-Genius camp, not by a long shot, but the events of BlizzCon2023 really seem intent on crediting him with that narrative change. Possibly contracturally.

We will probably never know who’s idea it actually was to address this whole World Soul thing but as far as the direction is concerned, it is the next logical step in my mind. Too long deferred, IMO.

So let’s look at that, lore-wise.

Going by (possibly obsolete) lore as presented in the Chronicles, Titans come from World Souls. Planets are, basically, eggs that World Souls gestate in until they hatch and become Titans. Legion provided us with a worst case scenario in the form of Argus.

Argus actually hatched. Argus was also subverted by the Legion and turned out to be a big Boss fight in Legion before we finally nailed Sargerus’ ass to the wall.

Argus, the planet, was unfortunately broken in the process. Kinda makes you wonder about the ultimate fate of Draenor – did they blow up the world soul, or is it still out there wandering around, looking to pick a fight? (Metzen, I want a nickel for every game sold if that ends up being something.) Anyway, Argus introduces us to the concept that hatching a world soul is possibly bad for the planet itself.

Not at all surprising. Eggshells rarely survive the making of omelettes. Remember the Marvel movie The Eternals? Kind of a familiar scenario. (Anybody’s guess as to whether there’s copyright-infringement-adjacent activities here, and who has first claim, though I suspect it was Marvel.)

So ultimately it’s not just the Giant Sword. And it’s not just the Giant Sword’s Impact on the World Soul. It’s the World Soul herself. Azeroth, the planet, the world, is a no-win scenario from the perspective of its inhabitants.

Based on what I know of eggs, things living on the shell don’t survive the hatching of the egg’s inhabitant. The shell’s inhabitants need to come up with a long term and permenant solution to that issue. Something that doesn’t involve the destruction of the World Soul living within Azeroth, but also doesn’t involve the destruction of the inhabitants of her shell.

I feel like this “saga” possibly acknowleges this situation and that we will also have some resolution of that untenable situation.

And now we address the tin-foil hat crowd. Hiiii.

One of the most prominent tin-foil hat trends in this regard has been that the final act of the World Soul Saga will set the stage for WoW2. I would like to debunk those theories now.

I mean, I really would.

But I can’t.

This is the perfect excuse to reboot WoW and to make WoW Retail (as it exists) into the Ultimate WoW Classic, and WoW2 into the New New Classic.

I’m not a gaming industry insider. But I AM a software development insider. And as a participant in that industry, I have to say that the most cynical take is usually the most profitable. All the theorycrafters in the world will pretend that the realities of corporate software development don’t exist, and I am here to tell you that they are complete and utter fools for ignoring those realities.

Blizzard is a software developer first, and a gaming software developer third. Maybe fourth. Anyway, what “makes sense” from a lore standpoint will always take a back seat to what makes sense from a sales perspective.

And WoW2 will, if it happens, be all about revitalizing sales. Any other “reason” provided will be in service to that unspoken goal. Sales is alway unspoken.

Please note I am making all effort to avoid judging. At this point in time, maybe WoW2 will be a good thing.

I’d be a fool for guessing what WoW2 would look like.

Never let it be said I walked away from being a fool.

Some completely subjective evidence I should like to submit is that WoW Classic (Endpoint, Classic, or whatever guise you want) is actually doing pretty well. They wouldn’t continue adding new features and (counter-intuitively) content to Classic if they didn’t see it driving engagement.

So first prediction is that there will be something like a reset in WoW2 that takes us back to Azeroth (actual) in a way that connects with WoW Classic Fans. Instead of adding a Whole New Expansion, they reset to the original Azeroth, or something like it.

One possible deviation might be that they finally acknowlege that STV and Tanaris are equatorial zones, not southern, and that there is more to the south of those zones, as it should be. (BTW, follow the links in that link – I deep dived.)

But the other thing is that maybe they reset everything. We’re on Azeroth. We’re working out things towards, possibly, the Naxxaramas raid as the ultimate endpoint of that world. And maybe they make the tie-ins into the next exapansion – WoW2 2.0 – less clunky. Maybe we already have Sin’dorei and Draenai from day one.

(I can also make a case for Pandarans being relegated to Associate Race in this case).

Dude. I’d pay for that.

And that possibly is the ultimate observation on the WoW announcements of BlizzCon2023. i.e. we’re excited about the New Shit, but we’re hoping you’ll take us back to the Old Shit Done Right.

As a (software) industry insider, this actually looks like a positive-trending reaction.

Am I right? Probably not. But this is what my tequila-infused neural network is thinking at this time. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.