Azeroth, a world populated with teeming with different creatures, races and vistas. Home to the plains of Kalimdor, the wrecked human kingdoms of the Eastern Kingdoms and desolate, free wastelands of Northrend. Also they introduced Pandaria, but let’s ignore that.
Azeroth has been immortalised by Blizzard entertainment through the medium of their games which initially were real-time strategy focused, peaking at Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and the subsequent expansion “The Frozen Throne”. Playing as Arthas, Thrall and Tyrande Whisperwind were some of the highlights in my life and in nearly every other PC gamer on the planet. The series did not end with Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne though. The series evolved into a name we’ve all heard, gamer or not: World of Warcraft. WoW as it’s popularly called has, and still is, been the pivotal turning point for the entire MMORPG industry, creating a genre that has brought people together from across the globe regardless of differences. Players have spent thousands of hours in the original World of Warcraft and it’s subsequent expansion packs, and having recently celebrated it’s 10 year birthday, the series is still going strong,providing inspiration for many other developers to learn from. As a result, the MMORPG genre has built itself into one of the strongest gaming genres in the world. The MOBA genre can also attribute its success to Warcraft, due to the legendary “Dota”.
And now World of Warcraft is going to take one more step, or three, into the realm of movies. Work on the Warcraft movie was announced ages ago, placing many people, including myself, in a catatonic state of disbelief and excitement. Would they muck it up? Would the story be worthy of the Warcraft universe? Will there be trolls from the Darkspear tribe? Will I be able to watch the movie without squealing in delight at every scene? Job done?
The movie itself will revolve around titular character Orgrim Doomhammer, Warchief of the Horde near the end of the First War and for the duration of the Second War. Interestingly the movie is also set to show the heroes on both sides of the war, making viewers empathize with all the characters. Orgrim himself is not the only main character.
And now to further add excitement to the already electric atmosphere surrounding the movie Duncan Jones, the director of the Warcraft movie has stated that he sees the movie as the first in a trilogy of movies. Having worked closely with Chris Metzen, who’s involved with the storytelling at Blizzard, the two laboured on the Warcraft movie so that it could set the stage for two (hopeful) sequels.
Lok’tar Ogar!
