Traditionally, World of Warcraft expansions have been standalone, with the story of each expansion being wrapped up before the next addition to the franchise takes the game in a new direction.
Who is the final boss of The War Within? (And The Worldsoul Saga?)
Sometimes the last patch of one expansion has set up the first patch of the next. But never before has a specific story point of the game been promised to play out over the course of three intertwined expansions.
WoW has some of the strongest established lore and consistent themes of any modern fantasy game, but rarely have those themes been leveraged consistently across a story that spans expansions, or even years. With the launch of The War Within later this year, however, Blizzard is embarking on a new project for the long-running franchise known as the “Worldsoul Saga,” which will usher in a new era in WoW history – one where a cohesive story is told through an overarching trilogy.
"We don't normally do something that's serialized, we normally do stories that are episodic as far as expansions go," Abigail Manuel, WoW's senior narrative designer, said at a press conference this week. "And we've gotten ahead of this in a lot of ways. We've planned out the major storylines really, really far in advance, and we know where we're going. That's how we're going to make sure that the payoff pays off after these three expansions."
