Polygon Interview - Caves and Storytelling in The War Within

In an interview with Polygon, Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton and Lead Prop Artist Jordan Powers discuss the first chapter of the World Soul Saga, revealing that the War Within is about more than just its initial focus on the Alliance may suggest — it also focuses on caves and intimate storytelling!

Story and Lore Interview with Polygon

A Character Driven Story

One of the main talking points is how much the story centers on Alliance stories rather than Horde ones, especially following the more neutral state between the two factions following Battle for Azeroth. A big focus of which is Anduin Wrynn, recently returned to the spotlight after his sojourn in the Shadowlands.

Maria Hamilton, via Polygon

I think we wanted to move away, except where it made a lot of sense, from having different stories being told. Sometimes we want you to understand a slightly different nuance, and then we might have a separate Horde-only or Alliance-only story. But in general, for our main story, we really wanted to make sure everyone understood that same story.

We did think a lot about where we have Horde representation and Alliance representation. And, of course, we know what we’re doing in the future, as well. And so we’re just trying to make sure that nobody’s feeling like their particular interest isn’t being represented as much as possible, because it’s a saga. Right? We have room to spread things out over a longer period of time. And it may be that that people are reacting to. They’re seeing this first chapter — not even the full chapter, really. But they’re seeing this first installment and saying, ‘Wow, that seems like a lot of Alliance characters.’ But there are Horde characters that are there. And there will be more later.

We wanted to do justice to Anduin’s story here. We wanted to make sure that he didn’t just suddenly feel better and be chipper. That would have really cheated everyone of the story. We wanted the depths of his self-doubt and sort of anguish Read more on wowhead.com