The Legion addon of World of Warcraft is good – but why is the “Burning Legion” such a boring adversary?
When you look at the reviews in the forum about World of Warcraft, most players agree that Legion is the best WoW expansion in a long time.
While there are some complaints about the RNG or farming artifact power, generally the presentation and long-term motivation are at a high point. But there’s one thing that players are increasingly annoyed about in Legion – the Legion itself. It is not the enemy it should be.
I will try in this article to break down a bit why the demons of the Legion fall short of the expectations placed on them as enemies.
No hints about the different species
What personally bothers me the most is the great mystery of the individual races of the Legion. Essentially, we know very little about the individual species that together make up the Burning Legion. What kind of culture do the succubi live in? How did the imps come to the Legion and what were their original race? If the Shivarra are priestesses, what do the followers of the Legion “believe” in?
Blizzard promised beforehand that we would learn “more” about the Legion, and I probably read too much into the statement. But when it comes to the individual races, I’m still as clueless on many points as I was before. And that bothers me a lot.
What I really know “more” about the Legion largely comes from the Chronicles books. The fact that the Legion ultimately wants to preempt annihilation by the Sha’tar is not made clear in the game.
No emotional attachment to the enemies
A major point is also that you don’t really build any attachment to the servants of the Legion.
Take Garrosh as a good counterexample. He was built up over several expansions. Whether you were Alliance or Horde, you built an emotional attachment to him. You either hated him for what he did or you liked him because he was finally an Orc who helped the Horde return to its aggressive roots and was really riled up. Garrosh brought the “War” back into Warcraft.
The Legion – Arrogant, but unsuccessful
With the Legion, it’s different. Hardly any servant of the Legion seems to take us seriously, even though we are the “heroes” who stopped the Iron Horde and have already foiled many conflicts with the Legion. Again and again, we are just shouted at:
- “Die, insect! Burn in the fire of Argus, the most powerful of all worlds in the great darkness!”
- “Miserable mortal! My superduper spell of annihilation will… annihilate you!”
The Legion does not take us seriously – in very large parts.
That may be a logical behavior for an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, but if you have already successfully repelled two invasions, then I would expect a bit more tactical calculation and a bit more emotional anger.
There were a handful of cool approaches, like the Mistress of the Imps, Agatha. She seduced an undead sorceress in the guise of a succubus through comfort and affection and ultimately made her use corrupted demonic magic. That was intriguing. That was cool. That’s what I expect from highly intelligent demons and not “Roar, die weakling!”-war cries without sense and reason.
The Tomb of Sargeras – Who am I actually killing?
A good example of the insignificance of the individual demons is the current raid, the Tomb of Sargeras. For 7 out of 9 bosses (all except the Avatar and Kil’Jaeden), players aren’t really aware: Who is that actually? Is that an important figure of the Legion? Or just NPC number 75239?
No, the bosses of the Tomb were not well presented before the raid, you did not build any attachment to them – there is no reason to hate them, apart from the fact that they just glow fel-green and drop loot.
Blizzard could do better
In the past, Blizzard solved this more cleverly. Before the Hellfire Citadel, we learned in different quest lines who all joined the Iron Horde and why the Arakkoa had a pact with Gul’dan – it was built up piece by piece. In the Tomb of Sargeras, this is simply completely missing.
An even better comparison can probably be made with Suramar and the Night Fortress. The whole Suramar campaign, which gained momentum over weeks and months, ultimately ended in the conquest of the city and the assault on the Night Fortress.
Every week there were new story content, new changes – that was skillful. In the Tomb of Sargeras, there was only a “Kill 100 demons again, because it’s important” mission each week. That was boring and simply did not do justice to the significance of the Tomb. And much worse: It contained not a spark of story.
The addon “Legion” is arguably one of the highlights of World of Warcraft with its gameplay ideas, recent story developments, and general presentation. Yet the Burning Legion with its nameless demon hordes simply does not live up to the role it should have in the Warcraft universe.
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Have you seen the ending cinematic from the Tomb of Sargeras? It offers an interesting story twist!
