A new image is causing a stir in the community of World of Warcraft. Because this is how Liadrin was supposed to look in the cinematic …
A few days ago, the intro cinematic of World of Warcraft Midnight was released. As usual, when Blizzard releases a new cinematic, there is a lot of discussion about it. Not everyone likes what was shown, and fundamentally, there are always alternating criticisms between “There was too much talking” or “There was too much action without story” – you can’t please everyone.
But this time, a completely different discussion overshadows the joy over the cinematic. Because especially the design of the blood elf Liadrin is under criticism. Now a concept image has even been released that envisions a completely different design for the blood elf.
What are the criticisms of Liadrin? Even though there are several criticisms of the cinematic and some posts about it have more than 16,000 upvotes, the main points can be summarized as follows:
- The characteristic eye glow of the blood elves is missing or only hinted at at the end.
- Liadrin does not look like a Warcraft elf but rather like a Tolkien or ESO elf – more like a human with pointed ears.
- Liadrin and Lor’themar have fewer details than, for example, Anduin in the cinematic of The War Within.
What was discovered now? A few hours after the release of the cinematics, a concept drawing of Liadrin was discovered on the Artstation profile of Gaowen Fu. This concept drawing shows Liadrin as she was supposed to look in the cinematic. The concept is marked as “accepted,” so it likely made it at least into the final selection or even served as the basis for Liadrin.
If you look at the concept drawing, Liadrin’s appearance is definitely more aligned with what some parts of the community would have wanted: A significantly more stylized version of the elf with additional strands of hair.
Blizzard deviates from the concept drawing, Liadrin looks completely different
This is how the community reacts: The discovery of the concept drawings causes some surprise among the players. Many wonder why there was such a departure from the concept and why Liadrin was given a different appearance. Some of the comments from the post in the WoW subreddit regarding this are:
- “This addresses pretty much all the criticisms I had about the cinematic. More eye glow and just a touch more stylized so that she looks more like an elf from Warcraft and less like one from Tolkien. I hope we also get to see the concept drawings of Lor’themar.” – Doctorlock74
- “Whoever was in charge of the cinematic thought she needed 20 cosmetic surgeries. Who looks at [the concept drawing] and honestly thinks: ‘Not bad, but her lips need to look more like a fish’.” – Lyrael9
- “In the concept drawing, she looks like an elf. In the cinematic, she looks like a human wearing an elf cosplay.” – Bevrykul
- “As I said before, her hair is the problem. I bet they didn’t have enough time to render it properly and then said ‘Screw it’ and just glued it flat to her head.” – VukKiller
How do you like Liadrin in the cinematic version? Are you satisfied with what you saw? Or should the concept drawing have been adhered to more strongly to better reflect the “classic” look of the blood elves?
More about World of Warcraft Midnight can be found in our comprehensive overview.
