Creators of emotional WoW documentary worked for three years before asking Blizzard for permission

The quality of the animation of the documentary ‘The Fantastic Life of Ibelin’, which reflects the life of a terminally ill World of Warcraft player, is so high that it requires cooperation from Blizzard. Or does it? Well, in fact, the developer studio was only informed about the upcoming documentary much later.

What kind of documentary is this? On October 25, 2024, ‘The Fantastic Life of Ibelin’ was released on the streaming platform Netflix. Due to his illness, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the Norwegian boy Mats Steen was physically limited in participating in life like other boys his age. He passed away at the age of 25 as a result of his illness.

The MMORPG World of Warcraft helped the boy participate in social life. The documentary tells his story and is mostly based on animations of the WoW characters.

The documentary touched the hearts of many WoW players, and they pilgrimaged in the game to a memorial of Mats Steen.

You can get a first impression of the emotional documentary with the trailer:

The Fantastic Life of Ibelin – Trailer for the Emotional Documentary about a Story from the WoW Community

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High-quality animations even without Blizzard’s collaboration

The magazine Polygon investigated the background of the Netflix documentary. Director Benjamin Ree and animator Rasmus Tukia told the author that they initially waited three years until they informed Blizzard about the documentary.

Shortly before the completion of the film, the two approached the game studio: ‘We just took the rights and tried to ask for forgiveness afterward.’

Blizzard wanted to see the film, and the filmmakers were excited whether the WoW developers would grant them the rights to the material. But after the screening, Blizzard gave the filmmakers the green light. Apparently, the executives were very touched by the film.

How are such high-quality animations possible without Blizzard? Animator Rasmus Tukia started playing World of Warcraft at the age of 12 and used the characters to create simple animation videos for YouTube. In 2015, he began working with software developed by the community to transfer characters from the game into other animation programs.

The quality of his work increased rapidly, and he was able to create higher-quality animations. Director Benjamin Ree discovered Rasmus Tukia’s YouTube channel and found in him the perfect candidate to realize his idea of a documentary about Mats Steen.