World of Warcraft: The War Within, bar some iffy early access nonsense, appears to be landing pretty well—it’s early days, mind, but Blizzard seems to have meant it when it comes to bolstering its evergreen systems, changing how it tells its story, and making Xal’atath into the scenery-chewing dramaturge perfect to kick off the Worldsoul Saga’s chaos.
Speaking with Ion Hazzikostas at Gamescom, I asked whether the dev team—given that Blizzard announced three WoW expansions at once—has been planting seeds here that’ll sprout story beats years down the line. Not only did he say “absolutely”, he also revealed that the team’s already hammering out the wider details of The Last Titan’s patch quests.
“We’ve always known what the next expansion was going to be, but if I’m going to be honest, two expansions ahead was unrealistic for our traditional development processes,” Hazzikostas said. “But we’re in meetings right now figuring out not just what The Last Titan is going to be, but what the major patches of The Last Titan are going to look like, and what’s going to happen in them, and what characters are pivotal.”
Oh neat, you might think, they’re planning their next expansion already—until you remember that the Worldsoul Saga trilogy is meant to go: The War Within, Midnight, and then The Last Titan. Whatever Blizzards’ new and improved development strategy is, it’s allowing them to plan two whole expansions ahead in terms of the game’s story.
“Being able to plan that far in advance and foreshadow, and set things up, and know ‘all right, we need these chess pieces in place on the board, in these positions three years from now, for these things to happen’—what can we do to make that make sense now? How can we begin to involve them in ways that otherwise we might not have thought to do, but that are going to be essential for players, to know who they are when it’s their turn to be in the spotlight.”
It’s downright impressive to hear, though it’s putting a ton of weight on the execution. While I’ve been genuinely quite impressed by the uptick in storytelling quality so far, The Worldsoul Saga still has a long road ahead of it—and the kind of long, continuous story Blizzard’s angling to tell will live and die by its patch quests. It can’t afford to have another Sylvanas moment, especially if the rest of the saga hinges on it.
Still, Hazzikostas seemed full of pep and energy when I talked to him (certainly more than I was, having been on my feet all day) which is a good sign to see. “We have an incredibly ambitious plan, we are incredibly excited about it,” he enthused. “I am so excited and geeked out at all the meetings that I’m going to, seeing progress updates, seeing concept art, seeing where this is going down the line—I want to fast-forward to get there because it’s so cool.
“I think we have the big pieces laid out, but the details of the execution, there’s plenty of room for twists, pivots, and sharpening out focus based on what we hear and see from players as they start this journey.”