World of Warcraft appears to be quietly ignoring Battle for Azeroth’s genocidal intro in Shadowlands

    
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This went over great.

Calia Menethil: “All right, fellow Forsaken… I know a lot has happened over the past however long it’s supposed to have been since this war has started. For one thing, this war started with us invading a sovereign nation and then committing genocide! That is a big one. We’re going to have to -”

Arcanist Valtrois: “Oh, good news about that! It didn’t happen.”

Calia Menethil: “…I’m sorry, what?”

Arcanist Valtrois: “Well, maybe it did, sort of, but we’re all acting like it didn’t.”

Calia Menethil: “Could you explain that again? And by again I mean at all.”

Arcanist Valtrois: “Oh, it’s all very simple. See, it appears that in the current version of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, they’re just not mentioning the genocide, the battle of Lordaeron, burning Teldrassil, any of that at all. Especially for new players, who are automatically sent into fighting for either Kul Tiras or Zandalar without any understanding of why the Horde and the Alliance are fighting in the first place.”

Calia Menethil: “Current version?”

Arcanist Valtrois: “That’s magic theory talk. Just ignore that part.”

Calia Menethil: “And the fact that the Forsaken were apparently fine with all of this?”

Arcanist Valtrois: “Actually, the new introductions for each race include the claim that Forsaken fight to defend the living and we’re totally ignoring all of that part.”

Calia Menethil: “So we’re ignoring the entire emotional impact of a horrifying decision because it would be too difficult to deal with the actual real questions that raises about our entire national identity.”

Arcanist Valtrois: “Yeah, turns out that’s a popular option these days.”

Source: Official Site, Wowhead; thanks to Jessica for the tip!
Update, 12:55 p.m. EDT
At 12:30 EDT, literally the same moment our article went live, Blizzard’s Steve Danuser tweeted full partial takebacks.

“To clarify, the Horde race descriptions that were datamined were for content not yet playable. They were placeholders and had not been vetted. I agree that the tone is off, particularly in the Forsaken entry. This was not an intended change of perspective for the race. The lines are being updated. Changes will appear in a future build. It’s alpha, so they (and other things) are always subject to change. Thanks for calling out issues like this. Please know we have only the best of intentions. Apologies for the consternation this caused.”

As MOP reader Emiliano noted, these tweets seem to refer to the race introductions only, not necessarily to the overall whitewashing of Tel’drassil. Cheers to Gen’Challa for the original tip!

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