The Blizzcon in Anaheim was rather unspectacular for fans of World of Warcraft. But the new WoW documentary “Looking for Group” is really damn good.
Some veterans might have been a bit disappointed. Celebrating 10 years of WoW and then not much was said about World of Warcraft at BlizzCon. There were a few panels, the little brother Hearthstone is getting an expansion, but the focus was more on the new game Overwatch. Warlords of Draenor is coming on Thursday, what else was supposed to happen?
There were rumors that Blizzard would do something totally crazy, announce Warcraft 4 or even the next WoW expansion “Eye of Azshara“, but nothing came of it. And the presentation of the WoW movie was also rather disappointing. Only the people who were in Anaheim really got to see something.
Blizzard reveals some secrets in World of Warcraft documentary
But actually, there’s a WoW highlight from the weekend. The hour-long documentary “Looking for Group” is really well done by Blizzard. With the typical mix of cheeky humor, sentimentality, nostalgia, and a sense of the epic moment, it navigates through the ten years of WoW in one hour.
The documentary reveals that Illidan’s iconic blindfold actually belonged to Uther. It gives a glimpse into the holy of holies of World of Warcraft, the server rooms; reflects on impactful events of the past and tiny moments that were supposed to have significance later. The documentary repeatedly allows insight into the mindset and various personalities of Blizzard employees. Especially Chris Metzen, as a sort of center of the film, has great moments as “Talking Head”.
And – what might be even nicer – Blizzard does not just celebrate itself and the world it created, but also the player community. A lot of space is used in the documentary to let the fans speak, so they can tell their stories. Although, as noted in the credits, they seem to have developed a perplexing fondness for unicorns. And Blizzard also shows that they can laugh at themselves. There are repeated clips from the South Park episode “Make Love, not Warcraft”, which in retrospect was a kind of pop-cultural knightly accolade for WoW.
You can find the documentary with German subtitles below:
