World of Warcraft: Midnight continues to deliver maddeningly weak writing

World of Warcraft has been my main gaming love for over two decades; I have multiple tattoos dedicated to the game. I built my career on top of it, and met my partner of 14 years because of it. So believe me when I say it HURTS to be feeling this way about the game.

World of Warcraft has never boasted the most amazing writing at a granular level, but at least it was often steeped in satisfying spectacle, leading with the "rule of cool" for better or worse. The setting was always what made it stand out, atop genuinely immersive background lore and major story beats that feel like the product of something greater. Or at least, should be the product of something greater.

I feel like since the disaster that was Shadowlands in back in 2020, Blizzard hasn't been able to find its narrative voice with World of Warcraft retail. I've written more than a few articles on the topic, but this week's major story resolution as part of Patch 12.1.5 is already seeing significant backlash.

Has Blizzard completely lost the plot here? SPOILERS AHEAD.

World of Warcraft *has* to be an episodic soap opera to function, but the payoff almost never materializes

As I sit to write this, I'm wondering to myself if eventually I'll eat some crow. There's always a flicker of curiosity in my mind about the way the game has moved forward since its most hated story arc, which demystified Death itself, reducing the universal stakes to almost nothing. Shadowlands effectively rendered death and dying as relatively inconsequential in the Warcraft universe, and the inconsistent behavior of some of its major characters, namely Sylvanas, single-handedly undid decades of character development and expectation.

Blizzard doesn't seem to have learned any lessons about stakes, and it's increasingly maddening given how well Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred, and even the recent Warcraft III: Forsaken Kingdom expansions prove that Blizzard can still write good shit. Why can't we have this in WoW retail?

In World of Warcraft: Midnight Patch 12.1.5, which launched today in Europe, Lady Liadrin, matriarch of the Horde Blood Elven paladins, dies. Her death is perhaps among the most anticlimactic, unceremonious, and understated deaths for a major character I've seen in video game history.

Blizzard has long held a strange joy for killing off Horde figures in unsatisfying and frankly wasteful ways. Whether it's Garrosh, Saurfang, Vol'jin, Cairne Bloodhoof ... at least some of these figures got meaningful deaths as part of an epic cutscene or CGI sequence. Liandrin simply passes out on a cavern floor, in a death that felt wholly unearned narratively and undeserved figuratively.

Throughout WoW: Midnight, Lady Liadrin has basically followed the player about, giving them quests and standing around while you did most of the busywork. Blizzard has rushed through troll and elf reunification, pushing aside thousands of years of baggage in a few relatively underwhelming quest segments that often feel pretty disconnected from the central battle against Xal'atath. That sense of disconnect extends to Liadrin in general, who hasn't really enjoyed enough build-up in my view to warrant what ultimately happened next.

In Patch 12.1.5, she channels her faith in the Light to deal a decisive blow to returning Old God general Kith'ix, who represents this patch's mid-season boss. The power seemingly overwhelms her, leading to her pretty unexpected demise on the cavern floor. I felt sadly bemused and mildly irritated. But not exactly shocked ... this has been par for the course as a Horde player for some time.

I saw the cutscene without any exposure to reactions online, and wondered if my immediate and overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction was simply a me problem. Apparently not. The backlash so far seems pretty palpable.

I feel as if Blizzard has tried to cram far too many characters in all at once in recent years, leaving them without meaningful story arcs. Mountains of supporting characters appeared as quickly as they then disappeared from the central narrative, robbing deaths like Liadrin's of any real sense of build-up, and therefore, no sense of payoff. It just feels awful, man. It's wild I find myself not even vaguely caring about the death of a character that has been in the game for almost 20 years ... what another miserable, maddening waste.

At least 12.1.5 has a new raid, a new "Mega Delve" to explore (which looks awesome), and other new content ... but man. For me, it has always started with caring about the setting, the roleplay, and feeling immersed in the world. Blizzard has been stripping that away with reckless abandon in recent years.

We have World of Warcraft: Forever coming up thankfully ... but game director Ion Hazzikostas promised me at BlizzCon that WoW: Retail wouldn't be left on the shelf as a result. That might not be his intention ... but it seems to be happening anyway.

Why is World of Warcraft: Retail's writing such a mess right now?

I'm still trying to speak to sources to get to the bottom of what's going on with World of Warcraft's writing so far. This isn't a matter of taste or sour grapes; I'm certainly not alone in thinking that WoW's writing has completely fallen off a cliff in recent years.

There are tons upon tons of issues with World of Warcraft's story delivery right now. I've theorized it's the self-imposed 8-week patch cadence, preventing quality and iteration from reaching the live client. I've huffed copium thinking that maybe, maybe there's going to be a payoff at the end of all this ... and that stuff like Liadrin's death will lead to something more interesting later, somehow?!

I've clung to hopium that Blizzard's appointment of franchise architect Chris Metzen might lead to somehow fixing the disaster that is Shadowlands in the wider narrative. I still have Vol'jin's urn in my inventory ...

Yeah ... I'm most likely just deluding myself at this point. After so many disappointments, cringeworthy story beats, and years upon years of unresolved plot threads — perhaps it's time to accept that WoW's retail writing team just isn't capable of delivering anything I find to be vaguely engaging.

The South Park team previously talked up a writing rule they follow, by which if your story beats can be linked by "and then" statements instead of "but" and "therefore" connections to denote consequences ... you've created something boring. I can't think of something more relatable to the current WoW writing style.

Things just keep happening for no real reason; "and then," it leads to no real consequences. There are too many plot threads going nowhere. Too many characters are half-baked and then sidelined, leading to various instances of "and then" instead of "therefore." Major lore points keep getting glossed over. Villains who vaguepost and scheme and tease and spend years leading us on to nowhere. Sylvanas showed up in Midnight for literally no reason. So many things keep happening for no reason.

RELATED: An ode to the Horde, and its weird erasure

Arator who? Turaylon when? Thrall where? There's not a single character left in WoW that isn't constantly wracked with self-doubting introspection, suffering from a terminal lack of conviction. Everything in WoW retail has become homogeneous sludge, and it's driving me crazy.

And perhaps worst of all, it's all just getting so, so boring.

World of Warcraft players deserve better.

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