During BlizzCon 2018, the folks at Blizzard Watch chatted up World of Warcraft Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi to discuss what lies in store for players in the future of Battle for Azeroth. Over the course of the interview, Blizzard Watch raised the question of whether the growing fissures within the Horde — which is increasingly split between those loyal to Warchief Sylvanas and her dissenters, represented in-game by Saurfang — might ever lead to the introduction of a third faction.
In response, Afrasiabi “explained that creating a third faction would mean splitting up friendships and guilds,” and that “his preference would be the other way: that the Alliance and Horde could group together ‘one of these days.'”
Now, it would of course be ridiculous to jump to conclusions based on an off-the-cuff remark made in response to a completely hypothetical situation, but as Blizzard Watch notes, “What [Afrasiabi] said is significant,” as it’s one of the first indications – from someone in such a senior position, at any rate – that the unifying of WoW’s factions just might be a possibility.
And of course, Blizzard has made a pointed effort in recent times to make it as easy as possible for players to group up with their friends through the Real ID/Battletag system, so it might not be an entirely farfetched idea. Nothing’s certain right now, but it’s an intriguing idea, and one which Blizzard Watch’s Matthew Rossi explores in-depth in his own article on the topic, which you can check out — along with the full interview itself — over at Blizzard Watch.
