World of Warcraft is one of the oldest MMORPGs on the market, with 20 years under its belt. Yet the game still looks solid – thanks to a decision.
World of Warcraft has been around for over 2 decades now. Although the game has gone through several crises, Blizzard’s MMORPG seems to be doing quite well currently – both Classic and The War Within are well received by the community. The fact that World of Warcraft has been able to remain on the market for so long is also due to a particular decision.
Where other MMORPGs often look old and unattractive after just a few years, WoW is largely protected from this. The comic style has stood the test of time and still looks solid today – since with comic graphics, it rarely matters if the details are photo-realistic.
This is what the community thinks: In the WoW subreddit, people often point out how beautiful different areas and environments in Azeroth still look. It hardly matters whether they come from the current expansion or are already 10 or 15 years old. Each area has its own charm.
One of the most recent posts shows a small montage of several areas and how good they look. The post has received over 3,000 upvotes and a lot of comments:
Some opinions from the community on this:
- “The visuals of WoW are beautiful. I remember when I started the game without any knowledge and brought a gnome from the starting area to Ironforge. The image of that little gnome and that huge city was breathtaking, and even today I still visit Ironforge often.
Also: the vibes in the areas. I can’t remember a single expansion where the visuals felt dull or out of place. They really did a perfect job there.” – _Pixzl_ - “I don’t know why, but seeing this has convinced me not to use flying mounts in new areas anymore. I’m tired of seeing these beautiful things as I zoom past them at Mach-1 speed. There is so much beautiful art in this game, and I need to slow down a bit and enjoy it all. Thank you for that.” – DowntownTrojan
- “With all the complaints people have about WoW – the art team is never one of them.” – __steyn
“That was one of the best decisions for WoW,” says the Game Director
Even Game Director Ion Hazzikostas spoke a few days ago in an interview with VICE about how this comic style has greatly contributed to WoW still looking good after 20 years. He said:
I can’t praise our art team enough, whether now or in the past 20 years. I believe one of the best decisions of World of Warcraft was to choose a more stylized, painterly art style that has really stood the test of time.
Even with the original graphics from back then. While people are playing and streaming Classic and Hardcore. [The graphics] still looks solid, still has its charm. We have added more details and are using all these modern capabilities of graphics cards and computer hardware. But broadly speaking, it’s this core feeling of World of Warcraft that has made it so enduring, that we are now entering our third decade and more years to come.
If Blizzard had chosen a more realistic style back then, World of Warcraft would probably not be what it is today after 20 years – and the developers would have likely had to make multiple revisions to keep the game looking modern in any way.
Suramar is still considered particularly popular – even though it is already 9 years old.
