The new Netflix documentary “The Fantastic Life of Ibelin” tells the touching story of a player from World of Warcraft who found real friends and beautiful moments in Azeroth, while his real life was a single torment.
What is the documentary based on? On bbc.com, the article “My disabled son’s amazing gaming life in the World of Warcraft” was published on February 7, 2019, which is about Mats Steen, a Norwegian boy who suffered from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (more about the disease on Wikipedia).
Based on the fate of Mats and his parents, the Netflix documentary “The Fantastic Life of Ibelin” will be released on October 25, 2024, for which you can watch the official trailer below:
Exciting Perspective for Parents
What is Mats’ story? Mats was confined to a wheelchair and the doctors considered it unlikely that the boy would see his 20th birthday. His parents, in turn, feared that their son would never find friends or leave a footprint in the world due to the disease.
At the age of eleven, Mats got the password for the family PC, where he discovered World of Warcraft for himself. While his parents accepted the new hobby, they never truly understood it. They believed it was only about winning and competing with other players. They worried as they observed their boy staying up late at the computer and sleeping long hours in the morning.
What they did not realize was that Mats found in Azeroth something that he was denied in real life, namely a community and friends with whom he could forget his illness for a while. In WoW, he was simply Lord Ibelin Redmoore, a popular member of a WoW guild. The guy who could listen well and had fun.
Azeroth is more than just an online world – here is the full blast of Classic nostalgia:
Did the parents change their view of WoW? Yes, and how! When Mats passed away on November 18, 2014, his father had the idea to leave a message to Mats’ teammates through the blog that his son had maintained on the side. There he explained what had happened and under which email address he could be reached. He feared that no one would respond…
But the opposite was true. Many guildmates expressed their condolences and sorrow in messages, sharing personal memories of Mats and what they had experienced together in WoW over the years. Many emphasized how important the terminally ill boy had become to the community over time.
How important, the parents realized, when many guild members flew in to attend the funeral. Those who could not afford the ticket received help from the rest of the community.
All of this made it clear to the parents how important World of Warcraft had become for Mats and what kind of life he had led despite his illness, namely one filled with friends and many beautiful moments. He had managed to leave his footprint in the world. Mats was 25 years old.
How important MMORPGs can be for many people is shown not only by Mats’ story. In June 2024, we reported about Jasmynrose29, who shared in a post about her severe illness and how The Elder Scrolls Online helped her: Seriously ill woman shares with the community what ESO means to her, the reactions are heartwarming
