Wowhead's Exclusive Blizzcon 2023 Interview with Anne Stickney & Tina Wang
This year at BlizzCon 2023, Wowhead was lucky to sit down for an exclusive interview with Senior Narrative Director Anne Stickley and Associate Game Director Tina Wang, discussing The War Within, open world endgame Delve content, and Heroic Talent philosophies! Read our full transcript below.
Blizzcon 2023 Interview with Anne Stickley & Tina Wang
We haven't heard of the Arathi humans in so long. Why now?
Anne Stickney: These guys are a splintered tribe of the original Arathi Empire from back in the day, before they split into the seven kingdoms that we know of. It was a massive — all of humanity came together in this Empire. And there was a group of them who left and they spawned their own kingdom across the sea. These guys are a splintered group from that kingdom that received a vision about a falling star, and it took them to Harrowfall. And when they found it — you guys saw the key art for it, it's huge, gigantic — these guys are super devoted to the Light. They're like uber Paladins, and it just made sense that if we were going to bring in a group devoted to the Light, to that degree, why not bring in those ancient tribes of humanity that maybe we haven't seen in a hot minute, or heard of in forever? The Arathi have a very interesting history because, like I said, they're kinda like the first Empire of humanity, and it splintered itself in different directions. This is a direction that we're not familiar with.
Tina Wang: On the art side, in World of Warcraft we're always trying to create variety in terms of what we encounter, and we haven't really done a very human-focused one in a while. We were really excited to touch up on their culture and history over the eons, that we're excited for players to check out as
