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World of Warcraft: Shadlowlands BlizzConline interview - Where does the story go next?

The story of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will continue with the upcoming Chains of Domination. To learn more about where the story is going, Shacknews talks to Lead Narrative Designer Steve Danuser.

Ozzie Mejia

February 24, 2021 4:45 PM

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The ongoing story in World of Warcraft has taken some intriguing turns over the last several years. Shadowlands has taken the plot to new and interesting places with everything surrounding Sylvanas Windrunner. With the Chains of Domination set to begin soon, there are a lot of questions about where her story goes next. Because as WoW players have learned, where Sylvanas goes, so too goes Azeroth's fate. To find out more, we spoke with Lead Narrative Designer Steve Danuser during this year's BlizzConline.

"Sylvanas is one of our pivotal characters in Warcraft for sure," Danuser told Shacknews. "She has such a rich history and she's a character that so many people have different perspectives on. She's done heroic things, she died saving her people. She's done terrible things, what she did to the Night Elves is something that they can't forgive. Her story is very much intertwined with what's going on now in Shadowlands. In the past she had to be kind of cagey about her motivation, she had to keep so much veiled or secret. That's why it was important to us, like in one of those cinematics with her and Anduin, where she says 'No more secrets, no more lies.' Now she gets to lay out the truth of what's driving her all this time.

"But it's not that simple, right? We've seen her as she and Anduin interacted. We picked up on that storyline of she's trying to win him to their cause because she has something that she believes in. The Jailer can make a better way for death and life to work. She wants Anduin to believe in that and Anduin does not. He's steadfast, he's a believer in the good things, and so she tried to work away at that, and then she had to come to a choice. Is she going to enforce the Jailer's will upon him, as had been done to her in the past, perhaps? Or is she going to choose a different path? We get that answer in the Chains of Domination intro cinematic. Her story, Anduin's story is pivotal to the drama of the Shadowlands and it's something that we have spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about on the team and we've very excited, as this is going to unfold. It is one of the key stones of the storyline of Shadowlands."

Chains of Domination was revealed during the BlizzConline Opening Ceremony and will continue the story that started with the Shadowlands expansion. In addition to the story's next chapters, players can expect new content, including a 10-boss raid called the Sanctum of Domination.

Our interview dives further into the Chains of Domination story, as well as Shadowlands getting to bring back some of World of Warcraft's most beloved dead characters. There's a lot to talk about and you can catch the whole thing in the video above. For more interviews like this, be sure to subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHub.TV on YouTube.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?