World of Warcraft - Battle For Azeroth, Review and Reception.
Hey guys, so Day 1 of blizzcon is over and their new expansion has been announced along with a slew of other things, mainly i'm going to be discussing the lore behind Battle For Azeroth or BFA, and giving you my reaction to the game's lore, setting and ramifications, there's a lot of new information out there so i'll mainly be focusing on the lore behind the story and how it affects the world at general.
So lets dive right into the story line of the new expansion and see what's happening.
Premise
After the events of the broken shore and finally ending the Legion threat forever, The Horde and Alliance are now embroiled in a massive war that spans the entire planet, The Horde under Warchief Windrunner attack The Night Elf capital of Teldrassil burning it to the ground, in retaliation, King Greymane and King Wrynn launch a massive siege on Undercity reclaiming the lost territory of Lorderon that fell during the 3rd war.
Jaina Proudmoore has reconnected with Kul'Tiras the former Alliance navy fleet and brought them back into the fold for the Alliance, as well, Sylvanas Windrunner has made contact with the Zandarlar Tribes and brought them into the fold for the Horde, both Islands are now strongholds for their respective factions, as there is no central villain in BFA this is what the expansion will be focused around.
The Eastern Kingdoms have been completely reclaimed by The Alliance and Kalimdor has been besieged by The Horde leaving the Draenei and Night Elves homeless but in a guerrila war with the forces of the horde, how deep the warfare goes over the planet is yet to be seen but regardless the entire planet is in a state of constant warfare this time playing for keeps.
We had what can be considered the 4th war in Pandaria between Garrosh Hellscream and Varian Wrynn however this time it takes place on our shores and towns and kingdoms.
The Lore
There is a ton of things to go over with the lore, now i want to state i am actually a big fan of this expansion, but i personally feel this should of came much later on or even been the expansion to finish the World Of Warcraft, the main player in BFA, Sylvanas Windrunner seems to have completely forgotten what she has been attempting to do for the past 15 years, paranoid about the destruction of her race, Sylvanas has done literally everything to provide a future for the forsaken, that is until now were she seems hellbent on destroying her own race.
During the events of Legion she attempted to solve this problem forever by obtaining the ability to raise the fallen from the lanterns of the Val'kyr of Oden, she was stopped by Genn Greymane who destroyed the lantern leaving Sylvanas back where she started, during the expansion however she seemed hellbent on destroying Greymane regardless of the apocalypse raging around her, understandable, but her next move in starting a planetary war isn't.
The Alliance, namely Greymane and Anduin were already contemplating removing Sylvanas after her betrayal of the Alliance at the Broken Shore leaving The Alliance completely surrounded by gul'dan and his minions leading to the death of High King Varian Wrynn, after the events halls of valor, Greymane allowed Sylvanas to proceed unhindered for the good of the planet under the Legion invasion.
There's two things to understand here, Sylvanas is terrified of her race being destroyed and the slightest provocation by her could spark a massive scale war, she seems to take these two things into consideration, and completely throw them out the window by starting a mass scale war that will ultimately lead to the deaths of 10's of thousands of her race by burning down Teldrassil.
Now people reading this might not fully know the lore of Warcraft but there is one more thing Sylvanas could do to secure the future of her race and secure The Horde as the dominant power in Warcraft, which lies in Northrend in the Helm of Domination now worn by Bolvar Fordragon to keep the scourge in check.
The war angle does make sense but not for the reasons given, Sylvanas' life mission since she was raised from death has been to ensure the survival of the forsaken, starting a war by trying secure the Frozen Throne is the logical next step for her, starting a war for no reason is kind of terrible writing and makes no sense to those of us that do follow the lore.
On the opposite side though, Blizzard have spent 2 years crafting the story of the south seas expansion to deal with the Old God N'zoth and it seemed like everything was leading up to this, so to throw a curve ball like this doesn't really make sense in any sense at all even if they're trying to write from the characters progression.
Lore aside though it's not all bad, the expansion itself seems pretty god damn amazing.
The actual expansion
The actual expansion seems amazing, we've been waiting for a long time for the true 4th war ever since the end of Warcraft 3, now 12 or so years later after we have grown accustom to the lands, the people and the scenery it will be great to actually be involved in the war this time where long standing places are now under attack, many Alliance players like myself have been asking the question for years "Why did we never retake lorderon after the events of Vanilla" now we finally get that chance.
We also get to see a place that hasn't been seen since Warcraft 2, over 20 years ago in Kul'Tiras the nautical island nation of privateers whose ruler gave birth to arguably the strongest mage in the modern lore in Jaina Proudmoore, however after the events of Warcraft 3 we're not entirely sure how she'll be welcomed home as she killed her father Daelan Proudmoore the former ruler of Kul'Tiras to secure a peace with the Horde that ultimately led to the destruction of her queendom.
And all though not quite lore friendly, the tribes of Zandalar have been brought into the fold and we now get to explore the islands surrounding one of the most mysterious troll races in the game, ultimately the setting doesn't make a difference here as we're just happy to get to explore these islands and see the aftermath of the Cataclysm and how time has affected both the continents.
And for the first time ever, after asking for a decade we finally get sub races to play, i know personally i'm excited for this as it's never really made sense that once we help out a population of people they for some reason remain neutral and stay in their own lands even though in lots of cases their home lands are destroyed.
Critical Review
I can't exactly list everything coming in Battle For Azeroth, there are numerous sites that can do that for you, i just wanted to give you my reaction to this as a long time follower of the game and a very invested fan of the games lore, while it may not make much sense for Sylvanas to start a war that she ultimately can't win Warcraft has a way of steering into different story lines during an expansions cycle, maybe what i said above will come true and we'll see Sylvanas make an attempt on The Frozen Throne, perhaps N'zoth will rise when both armies are at their lowest point.
Whatever is to come in Battle for Azeroth people are excited at the prospect of this expansion as it opens numerous doors and adds much wanted things into the game people have been asking for for a decade and gives us places we have wanted to explore for years, as well as letting us see what exactly happens when Azeroth is not faced with a threat we seem to always slip into war with ourselves.
The Battle For Azeroth has already made a statement on how it will change the game for the better and there's only one real question left, For the Horde or For the Alliance?