Just over a week ago, Blizzard revealed that they would be unveiling three animated shorts in anticipation for the latest expansion for their flagship MMO, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. These animated shorts would each be titled ‘Warbringers,’ and each would focus on an important character in the lore of the game (and noticeably, each of said characters is in a position to upset the tenuous balance of the world following the last expansion, ‘Legion.’) With only 20 days remaining before the expansion launches, the first of the three shorts has been released, and it focuses on the somewhat controversial frost mage Jaina Proudmoore.
The video might be a little confusing to certain players, especially since the events that are being referenced in the sea shanty song that’s being sung by both Jaina and the ethereal ghosts actually occurred way back in Warcraft III’s expansion, ‘The Frozen Throne,’ (all the way back in 2003). The main thing to take note of, however, is that the ship that Jaina brings up from the depths is implied to be the galleon that her father sailed on so many years ago. This is pretty important for both the literal implications that Jaina intends to sail to Kul Tiras to try and recruit the local populace onto the Alliance’s side in preparation of the bubbling conflict with the Horde, something that is almost certainly going to escalate the problem, hence why she’s being called a ‘Warbringer.’ But perhaps more importantly, it’s a kind of symbolic image that Jaina has finally come to understand her father’s way of thinking, something she rejected years ago and what was ultimately the action that sealed his death. Considering her father wanted to destroy all that the Horde stood for, the implications are worrying.
In any case, we still have two shorts remaining before the expansion’s release, one starring the even more controversial ‘Banshee Queen’ Sylvanas Windrunner and the unquestionably diabolic Azshara. If I was Jaina, I’d feel pretty worried being placed in any grouping involving those two…
If you want refresher on what exactly Battle for Azeroth will bring to the game, check out our informative break-down of the upcoming features.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth releases on the 14th of August 2018 for PC.