In the story of Warcraft, there are some mistakes and curious decisions. We present the 5 biggest fails here.
World of Warcraft is vast. No wonder, as there is now over 20 years of content and 10 expansions, in which the game world and storyline have continuously expanded and become more extensive. The MMORPG has now taken on proportions that the original developers never dared to dream of.
However, the more the world was expanded, the more potential there was for logical errors and story problems. Some of these are simply small “ret-cons” in the huge story of World of Warcraft, meaning retrospective adjustments to the lore to make everything fit again. Yet sometimes, World of Warcraft gets caught up in major contradictions or changes things that were previously extremely popular within the community. That is then a “story fail.” Today, we present to you the 5 biggest of these fails.
The entire concept of ‘Shadowlands’
Whatever way you look at it, the Shadowlands expansion is largely regarded as negative and contradictory. However, the individual quest lines in the areas are good and exciting. There are many great and interesting storylines in the various zones, intricate cultures, and plenty to discover.
The problem here is that the whole concept of the “Shadowlands” has harmed World of Warcraft in a lasting way. By “demystifying” death in Warcraft, many incidents in the game world simply seem less significant.
An important lore character dies, who had the secret knowledge about overcoming the new super enemy? No problem: Just travel to the Shadowlands and calmly discuss it over a cup of tea.
Blizzard has already hinted that the “connection to the Shadowlands is closing,” so that from a story perspective, you can’t visit all the dead – but the damage is done, and the feeling that everything is somewhat irrelevant will only slowly fade away.
Furthermore, Blizzard has also undermined its own story with Shadowlands, which had only recently been established with the “Chronicles” books and the existing lore.
Because the Shadowlands are originally the counterpart to the Emerald Dream. The Emerald Dream is essentially an “ideal version” of Azeroth, where the various races have not made significant changes, and there were no wars. A world of nature, shaped by life itself.
Conversely, the Shadowlands were actually the exact opposite. A dark, gloomy world. An Azeroth where only death exists – hence dead forests, wandering souls, and a generally grim atmosphere. Several quests previously described the Shadowlands this way, and there were also (especially in Vanilla) quests where you had to temporarily die to speak with souls in the Shadowlands.
During the “Battle for Azeroth” expansion, you even have to rescue Jaina from the clutches of the Drust, who is trapped in a part of the original Shadowlands.
However, Shadowlands has turned the “Shadowlands” into one of the grand cosmic planes that are not part of Azeroth. This contradicts both the newer and older lore and makes the entire cosmology of World of Warcraft appear contradictory.
Not to mention the damage done to the many cultures and religious beliefs about life after death in World of Warcraft – because they are all simply wrong. Now we know what the afterlife is like.
