Controversial World of Warcraft quest removed from test realms
World of Warcraft’s test realms are a way for players to preview upcoming content, and some of that content recently caused an uproar among fans. An early draft of a quest in the upcoming Fractures in Time patch, which is planned to release on July 11, had players work to maintain the timeline. Unfortunately, that task required them to ensure the capture, torture, and exploitation of one of their closest allies. Blizzard has promised changes to the writing, but the controversy betrays deeper issues with the game’s narrative.
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer game, and every player is the protagonist of their own story. The supporting cast is made up of the most powerful heroes and dastardly villains in the cosmos, and this presents an obvious narrative difficulty. The player can be an undead rogue called Ganklordx, or a noble night elf role-player, but either way will be in the regular habit of killing gods and rolling with a stable of mortal legends. Blizzard has to come up with antagonists worth fighting, spinning dastardly plans with terrible consequences.
In Dragonflight, players head to the Dragon Isles, a mysterious, long-lost continent that’s home to the noble dragons. The dragons are divided into five flights (hence the expansion name) each led by an Aspect. Alexstrasza is the Aspect of the Red Dragonflight, the Dragonqueen, and one of the oldest characters in the franchise. She’s the poster girl of Dragonflight, a magnificent and powerful creature — and a rape survivor. And Blizzard has struggled to handle the narrative weight of her story over the decades.
Blizzard launched a Public Test Realm (PTR) for the Fractures of Time update in May, and one quest in particular didn’t fit. Chromie, a
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