With the latest patch, World of Warcraft has become WildStar. At least that’s what Cortyn from MeinMMO thinks, seeing parallels everywhere.
The latest patch of World of Warcraft has been live since last Wednesday, and I ventured into Zereth Mortis after a break from Blizzard’s MMORPG. I actually expected that the patch wouldn’t “hook” me, as I was hardly interested in the events beyond the outcome of the Sylvanas story.
But I was mistaken. I love Zereth Mortis for several reasons – and the most important one is a long-dead MMORPG.
The Shadowlands were already far removed from what makes Azeroth and World of Warcraft. Zereth Mortis takes that to another level. The creatures are visually even more abstract and unreal. Large sphere beings, robots with a singing voice, and everywhere geometrically perfectly shaped objects.
No, it all felt even stranger than the entire Shadowlands. That’s fundamentally okay, as this abstraction is exactly what Zereth Mortis is supposed to be. A toolkit of the original elements of the afterlife that the “First” experimented with. A forge where the blueprints exist not only for the environment but also for the creatures.
Yet, despite its inappropriateness for Warcraft, I felt oddly at home and comfortable. I couldn’t explain it until it suddenly came to mind:
The entire area of Zereth Mortis is WildStar, crammed into a few square meters.
Once you grasp this thought, you begin to see parallels everywhere in Zereth Mortis. The entire story of the Nexus planet from WildStar strongly resembles that of Zereth Mortis.
It doesn’t matter which cardinal direction I’m heading. When I’m bouncing through the green fauna in the south of Zereth Mortis, I feel like I’m suddenly back in Celestion. In the far north, however, I increasingly feel like I’m in Deradune, and the Lopp should be jumping at me any moment, wanting my glitzis.
Even the geometric shapes, be it the hexagonal columns or the spheres, contribute to this. It all so strongly reminds me of Eldan design, which could be seen everywhere in WildStar. There, geometry and the “unnatural” design of perfect shapes in a wild environment played a significant role repeatedly.
Honestly, I was just waiting for an Aurin to suddenly appear from somewhere and ask me frantically if I had seen their episodes of “Matria after Midnight” or if one could not stop the Chua from exploiting the planet.
Yet the entire gameplay design of the area constantly reminds me of the bygone MMORPG. The jumping puzzles have become more complex in many cases than what one was used to from World of Warcraft. In some places, I see a dozen players desperately trying to navigate their way across several small platforms to the next treasure (while the Venthyr players simply teleport up).
The Pocopoc unlocks for the little robot remind me a bit of the paths one could choose in WildStar. There are additional treasures to see, or different things grant temporary character buffs that speed up progress in the area.
Finally, the flair of the area is comparable to its story. In WildStar, it was always the exploratory urge that underpinned most decisions and the attempt to understand the Nexus planet. Similarly, in Zereth Mortis with the Automa, whose motives and language cannot be grasped at first. Players and NPCs just fumble around a bit on the peculiar consoles and try to grasp what is actually going on. As you understand more and more, more and more questions are raised, and by the time you see the “big picture,” many gameplay hours go by.
I’m not saying that World of Warcraft shamelessly borrowed from WildStar. Having a mysterious creator deity that lets a machine-like race work for them, based on logic and geometric shapes, is a pretty popular and well-known concept. WildStar was not the first game to do this, and World of Warcraft is certainly not going to be the last.
But Zereth Mortis reminds me in every corner of the map of this failed – but beloved – game, and just that makes the exploration really enjoyable.
Yes, Zereth Mortis has little in common with Azeroth or the other areas of the Shadowlands. But that’s perfectly okay, as this landscape is meant to be surreal and alien – it serves as a perfect unique getaway.
