2023-09-10 11:00:02
Game news World of Warcraft: “the best is yet to come”, Blizzard more than ever focused on the future of WoW for its 20th anniversary
Published on 09/10/2023 at 1:00 p.m.
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Blizzard does not seem to be resting on its laurels. Barely patch 10.1.7 deployed and 10.2 announced, the studio has its head turned towards the future. This is evidenced by the various statements from Ion Hazzikostas: Game Director of World of Warcraft and Holly Longdale: Vice President & Executive Producer for World of Warcraft. The JV editorial team was able to interview them in an exclusive interview on topics such as the design philosophy for developing World of Warcraft, the way of telling stories that is very different than before, the lessons they were able to learn from their past experiences and once more what awaits players in the future.
2023 is now well underway. It’s hard to believe that a new expansion for World of Warcraft will arrive before the new year, especially following the very recent announcement of update 10.2 and only one spring having passed since the release of Dragonflight. But Blizzard, and the team behind World of Warcraft, seems ready to strike a big blow at BlizzCon: the event organized by the publisher to talk regarding the future of its licenses returns to its usual date and its usual place following that it was turned upside down by Covid and several internal affairs. On November 3 and 4 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Ion Hazzikostas and Holly Longdale are expected to announce what awaits World of Warcraft players for years to come. It must be said that November 2024 will be synonymous with a 20th anniversary for the most famous massively multiplayer online role-playing game of all time.
A certain design philosophy
20 is young for a lot of people. But in the world of video games, that lasts forever and it’s dizzying. A dozen months before blowing out the candles, the Game Director and the Vice President & Executive Producer explain what their design philosophy is today for World of Warcraft:
One of the principles that guides us is to make our game really alive, whether there’s something really fresh or there’s something new just happening.
A gaming philosophy that arrived recently, following surveying the players. The majority of them pointed out the lack of content. Something that happened in the Shadowlands expansion, the one just before Dragonflight, that forced Blizzard to rethink the way they did things.
In 2021, there were a lot of things that made the team really take a hard look at how we worked and the experience we were creating for our players (…). And so, we started this journey of experimentation by doing updates every 8 weeks, and it’s been better than we had hoped.
According to Holly Longdale, player retention rates have increased in recent months. Enough to convince her to prepare the future of World of Warcraft in this way by taking Dragonflight as a new starting point.
Dragonflight is truly the first expansion that was designed entirely with this point of view in mind. That of offering players a wide variety of options in terms of gameplay for their game experience, without necessarily forcing one path over the other; attempt to adapt to the diversity of playstyles that coexist in the game; giving people the freedom to choose what they want to do, what they are happy and excited to do when they sign up for Azeroth, every day, every week, no matter how often.
Storytelling reaching a turning point
Beyond simple enrichment with additional content to do, Ion Hazzikostas and Holly Longdale are rethinking the way of telling stories. They first explain having run out of steam on the narrative content linked to the era of Warcraft 3. They therefore arrive at a crossroads where they must create lore where they might rely on something already existing before.
We’ve almost exhausted the canon of the Warcraft III era when it comes to the bad guys we still have to face and the places we still have to go. We’re creating new ones as we speak. The Primordial Incarnates at the heart of Dragonflight are a new creation for World of Warcraft.
Once once more, Dragonflight serves as a new starting point on this level. On this subject, it is by looking back that Blizzard has changed the way it builds its story. Ion Hazzikostas explains that in past expansions, there were no real structures for storytelling:
You defeated the Lich King and suddenly Deathwing arrives. You defeated Ragnaros in this raid and now it’s time to confront Nefarian.
Boss sequences which didn’t really make sense according to him. Since Dragonflight, Blizzard has taken on the challenge of being narratively coherent and detailed. A challenge as tough as it is exciting, especially compared to certain past expansions. On this subject, Ion explains which patches in particular he is looking at to build the future of the World of Warcraft campaign:
There’s the fall of the Lich King, at the end of Wrath of the Lich King, or, you know, at pivotal moments in Legion, we went to the Tomb of Sargeras or to the planet Argus and found ourselves face to face with enemies like Kil’jaeden, we got to see Sargeras. It was the result of years of preparation, wasn’t it? The people who, since War III, have played Arthas in The Calling of Stratholme, that thread that led them to confront him atop Icecrown Citadel, so many years later, was such a reward. important for something that had inspired people for years. How can we, how can we get back to that? How do we plant the seeds today and yesterday, along the way, that will give us the ability to deliver these moments and others that will hopefully one day surpass them?
World of Warcraft: what is the future?
Very interesting questions for anyone with a minimum interest in the general history of the world of Warcraft. There is therefore a real challenge in taking back the reins, both story-wise and from a gameplay point of view. An exciting challenge for Blizzard which has its share of uncertainties. Next year, World of Warcraft will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Something to probably look back on for Blizzard in a way that will boost Blizzard creativity for the future:
It’s a world that millions of players have chosen and are choosing to spend their time in. And our highest responsibility is to make their experience the best it can be, to ensure that their trust in our game and in our world is well positioned. It requires re-examining a lot of design philosophies, things that were submitted by the original creators of the game, that we continued to apply, because that was our tradition. But we also wondered if it was still the right choice for our community.
Questions which, according to them, allowed them to plant the first seeds for “5, 10, 15, 20 years to come and see beyond“. Selon Ion Hazzikostas, “The best is yet to come“. A future which, on paper, seems very exciting for the studio but also for the player. See you on November 3rd with the Blizzcon event to find out for sure.
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