WoW Shadowlands: Let’s Go to Hell!

So, as the Blizzcon dust settles, it’s time to take a good look at the expansion features and lore. Starting with lore of course :)

LORE

My major concern and hostility towards the new expansion is of course the cinematic.

My major “no” is villain introduction. It required an extra machinima to show him, and yet we don’t know what threat exactly he poses, and what exactly are we fighting against. Yes, we need to get the skies back to normal and separate life from death back to normal, but what’s his goal?

My major “no” is the meaning of the Helm of Domination retconned. As we know, it was created with the help of eredar to serve as a leash thingie for the Scourge. I mean, we could live without it through thousands of years, and nothing went wrong. The sole purpose of it was keeping the newly-created Scourge at bay, but that’s only Undead in the real world. No one could presume that it will serve to break the reality, merge death and life planes, and open portals! That’s what pissed me off most. Hopefully they will expain it thoroughly during quests. Yet, an expansion cinematic should have served this role.

Don’t get me wrong though. I’m not against that most leaks appeared to be true, and my predictions went all wrong. Blizzard is there to surprise us, so I’m glad they did. I liked how they brought us to somewhere completely different – it’s, after all, is an elegant solution with a tongue-in-cheek play with Bolvar and Lich Queen theme. I’m happy that a leak about some very-very local troll loa Mueh’zala went all false – him, Gorak Tul, Helya and others are just too of a small and local figures to reign death realm for all of us and be a major villain. 

Now to the most interesting thing: the actual whole theme of the new expansion. It’s a duality that brings forward both positive and negative thoughts. On the negative side, it’s a new reality which is not gonna be there after the expansion ends. It’s a cataclysm of Cataclysm proportions, yet unlike it the world is gonna be back to normal – that’s our goal. So it’s not the land that stays to wander around and visit after our adventures (not gameplay-wise, of course, but lorewise).

Yet it has its appeal, and huge as such. Unlike Draenor, which was merely a trouser of time, this plane is real – as it is basically 5 circles of Heaven (or Hell)! This plane of existence is more than 100% real, it’s been there all the time, it contains the souls of the dead, divided by their life choices.

Basically Blizzard offers us an option to finally learn how Death works in the Warcraft universe, take a look – and a step – to its Heavens and Hell, and that is actually very-very cool. It answers the question of what will happen after your character will die? Are there angels? Demons? One of the major questions that bothers humanity IRL gets answered in the game for your toons, and this is actually amazing.

My only desire is that the lore holes and gaps will be solved in game, unlike the BfA-style of leaving more questions than answers when its chapters ended. Can’t tell so from the cinematic, but one can hope :)

So… let’s go to Hell? I’m all in!

Advertisement