Are you wondering why it is that a random baker from Stormwind can casually walk through a portal to the afterlife and sell bread in Oribos in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands? A new interview with lead narrative designer Steve Danuser and lead game designer Morgan Day will not actually answer any questions you have about how that works, or why it should work, or why you have to ask these questions in the first place. But it will assure you that the developers are thinking about it! They’re just… not providing any answers about it. For reasons. But they totally think about it:
It was a great opportunity to show that everyone on the team is a storyteller, not just the narrative team or the quest team; it’s everyone working together to infuse story into everything they do, and that’s one of the hallmarks of what makes worldbuilding in WoW really stand out and resonate with fans year after year.
The interview talks a lot about the disconnect between Blizzard’s actual story ambitions and how players have received them, but it seems that the interview answers all focus on the positive side of things and wind up not saying a whole heck of a lot about the absolute state of the storytelling in this expansion. You can read the whole thing for yourself, of course; it just doesn’t contain nearly the explanation you might be expecting.
