Why the Story of Shadowlands Failed so Terribly

Shadowlands was arguably the most horribly received World of Warcraft storyline in an expansion so far. Despite a large amount of creativity in zone diversity, characters, events, cinematics, etc the story of Shadowlands fell flat with the World of Warcraft community, leading to massive community backlash against Blizzard Entertainment. Sylvanas Windrunner, who was meant to be the center-star of the expansion, driving the interest in the story forward, was unable to connect with the audience. And the Jailer, Blizzard's newest villain for World of Warcraft, was unoriginal, boring, and his plans to this day are still mostly unknown.

It was an expansion shrouded in mystery, confusion, poor storytelling, and drama behind the scenes - a recipe for disaster for the World of Warcraft team. However, there is some hope in that Dragonflight, at least from what we've seen so far, looks very promising from a story perspective. And that's something that Nixxiom will talk further on in a future video.

*TIMESTAMPS*
0:00 The Worst Expansion Story
1:06 Morally Grey
5:03 Pure Confusion
8:26 It's Finally Over

*USE Zygor TO UPGRADE YOUR WoW EXPERIENCE TODAY*

*LINKS*

*VIDEO MADE WITH*

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#worldofwarcraft #shadowlands #dragonflight

[Viviaana_silvermoon]

It made zero sense that Sylvanas would hate the lich king so much then literally find who created him and immediately become his best friend, they never explained why she was ever involved

[iam.thecaptain]

they even ruined the burning legion and sargeras, " tHe jAiLoR wAs BeHiNd eVeRyThYnInG " the burning legion was a a legit threat in the story and well established in the lore, and suddenly you hear this giant 15 foot vampire bodybuilder was behind it all ...

[jordanread]

Ner'zhul became one of my favourite characters and still is. Simply because he succeeded in screwing over Kil'jaeden. The demon that tricked him into going to war against the Draenei and basically dooming the Orcs until Groms sacrifice in WC3. After becoming the Lich King, he tricked the Legion into believing that the best way to destroy the humans and the high elves was from within. By corrupting Arthas. While also conceiving them that Kel'thuzad would be the only one capable of summoning Archimonde to Azeroth. So when Kel'thuzad was dead and Arthas had picked up Frostmourne, he ordered his new Death Knight champion to 'kill' Mal'ganis. Raising a red flag to the Legion but by that point it was too late to do anything about it. Archimonde was getting impatient. Kel'thuzads remains were decaying and most of the scourge at the time was destroyed. Of course the Scourge did its job. Kel'thuzad was resurrected, stronger than before. Archimonde was then summoned and the Legion began its invasion into Kalimdor once Cenarius was taken care of. But what the Legion didn't expect was Arthas sneaking his way to Kalimdor to have a chat to a certain demon hunter about the Skull of Gul'dan and Tichondrius. After the Legions defeat, Kil'jaeden realized too little too late why that was the case. Ner'zhul was undermining the Legion from the very beginning. Kil'jaeden fought to be clever and use Illidan, the very demon hunter Ner'zhul via Arthas had interacted with, to destroy the Lich King. But in the end Ner'zhul won. Illidans forces were defeated and he was finally free from the Legion.

Even if he was usurped by Arthas, he still achieved his goal of giving Kil'jaeden the bird and there was nothing the great demon lord could do about it.

That is until Shadowlands revealed that Zovaal was the one truly behind the Lich King and one has to wonder if Ner'zhuls schemes were still his own or if it was Zovaals. Like what role was the Lich King meant to do originally. Zovaal considered Ner'zhul a failure for being usurped by Arthas. According to Ner'zhuls dialogue before his boss fight in SoD. Blizzard ruined a great revenge plot between two villains just to try and paint this new character as this master schemer.

[MatthewGalon]

The other problem with the Sylvanas point was that not only did they re-write her story but many of the “old guard.” Jaina in bfa changed a lot and then flipped back into irrelevance, sylvanas’ dorection changed Tyranda’s character to essentially do nothing for all of SL, Malfurion has been absent for like 4 xpacs for some reason, and don’t even get me started on Bolvar losing to Sylvanas. All the new character directions have been bad imo.

[SharrkyX]

I think just revealing the afterlife ruins so many things, it just wont be the same going back to the "real" world when you know how the afterlife functions.

[rebecca]

The ONLY good mini story in Shadowlands was the quest in the Kyrian campaign where you replayed Ben Howell’s final moments before the scourge invaded Redridge. it was such a breath of fresh air to be back on Azeroth.

[Comedymakesmelaugh]

Honestly Sylvanas becoming warchief could have worked if they moved her into a somewhat more heroic direction as the Legion promo website implied she might be. Having her emerge from the shadows after having spent years with the Horde and feeling some sort of camaraderie with them, even if it's not the same as she felt with her people in life. I'm not saying she had to be a paragon of justice, that would be stupid. But even her shock and seeming worry for Vol'Jin's safety during the Broken Shore implied that she had changed to some degree. The problem is, that story was abandoned and they took her even farther in the opposite direction to make her a worse version of Garrosh.

[naciabell]

Another isssue in my opinion is that they couldn't mae up their mind about how good or evil sylvanas was. They kept wanting us to feel sorry for her or sympathise, while also having her do lots of evil stuff without explination. Her character was very inconsistant cause they wanted her to be bad without being 'Bad' if that makes any sense. In battle for azeroth she was the villain. Now she's more sympathetic in shadowlands and we need to forgive her cause it wasn't really her fault and etc. Etc.

They didn't want to let Sylvana's be properly evil despite that being a big part of her original appeal. And shadowlands just constnatly went with that and as a result she never felt like she was conistant. Contrast that with Garrosh who, whatever you feel about him. OWNED who he was and that he was bad and did bad things. And felt no shame or guilt and would do them all again.

[termagant]

To be honest, the unveiling at the end that every major being is nothing but a damned robot felt waaaay more destructive. It totally demystified and devalued just...everything.

[Yoshilisk]

my biggest gripe was definitely the way shadowlands constantly spit on old lore in order to prop itself up. the jailer created the lich king to be his pawn. the scourge's architecture and many of its undead creations were ideas taken from maldraxxus. the nathrezim are actually death beings, and their role in the creation of the legion was part of zovaal's plan. the emerald dream is no longer where wild gods are reborn when they die. elune has a sister who is a robot, which potentially has implications about elune herself? the helm of domination got turned into A GODDAMN QUEST GREEN. etc etc

and yeah the robots thing was weird. "manufactured gods" COULD be an interesting plot, but leaving it until the last major patch in an otherwise very fantasy-esque expac just kinda... takes the wind out of the setting's sails. whatever little wind there was.

[furiousdave]

The fact they turned The Lich King (One of Azeroths biggest villains, and one of the best tragic hero stories) into a literal puppet of a man they pulled out of thin air. They had a chance to give Arthas a redemption story he kinda deserved and they did nothing of the sort. Would've been kinda cool to see Arthas and Sylvanas fight the Jailor<Whom in their new established lore, ruined both of their lives.>

[Mr_Edwards_]

What I enjoyed about Warcraft’s older lore and stories, there is always this sense of mysticism. You are given enough knowledge to understand greater cosmic forces such as the legion, old gods, life and death, how magic works, etc. Enough to dream and wonder but not soo much it takes away from the fantasy and intrigue of the unknown.

[nicholasscratch]

Ah yes Wrath, the before time wherein Arthas was not disenchanted into 35 anima power I never ended up using.

[Kemot]

To add into the confusion: Just like in WoD when they said there are infinite timelines. Here Blizzard claimed, if I remember, that all alternate timelines lead to the same Shadowland. And then they did nothing with it. Like only one version of each person existed

[immortalgamer]

I think that Sylvanas becoming Warchief COULD have been good. Taking her out of her established role and having her develop as a character by needing to take a position in the foreground could have been some good character development. Instead they decided to go: "Hey, you know that thing we did that made everyone hate Garrosh? Maybe if we do it with Sylvanas it will work because everyone loves her so much."

[deadfishy]

Sylvanas could have been a great villain in my opinion. She spent so much time fighting Arthas to ironically become just like him. It's missed potential.

[nopyronoparty]

The Uther memory regarding Arthas was really, REALLY good. However, instead of giving Arthas a final moment with Jaina or Uther, or atleast something showing us that his soul was free, we got 35

[mellowsunset]

So true Nixxiom - the lack of foreshadowing was a huge problem. The fact that shadowlands barely had any connection to previous lore. It just doesn’t feel like a real world.

[spockman]

I think that the main problem with Shadowlands is truly the feeling of disconnectivity like you said. And the main let down is they had the perfect opprotunity to have that connectivity via their characters. We should have revisited old characters, developed new characters, and seen the Shadowlands through the eyes of recurring characters. In Bastion we should have been greeted by recruit Maraad and taken to see Anduin Lothar to fight against his fallen friend Uther. In Ardenweld we should have hung out with Cairne Bloodhoof and Sen'jin, both attached to the spirits and nature in their own way. Revendreth should have had the court of harvesters being recruited from enemies of the past who represent those sins (Wrath for Garrosh, Pride for Kael-Thas, Dread for Van Cleef, Envy for Sicco Thermaplug, Desire for Onyxia, etc.) We should have followed the characters we rescued in Maw as they're reunited with people from their past, like Jaina reuniting with her father or Thrall reuniting with Garrosh. We should have had new characters like Calia and Taela, who have explicit personal connections to the Lich King and are being set up as major characters going forward, be developed via working with us and Bolvar so that we can understand and like them more. But no, they either had characters sitting around doing nothing the entire expansion, disappear after 9.1, or be so unremarkable that we don't care about them. The saddest thing to me about Shadowland's story is what it could have been vs what it ended up being.

[ariw]

My biggest problem is what they did to arthas, not making the jailer the cause, oh no

Turning him into 100 Anima and having the character I hate the most monologs and tell him to "go away" and then out of everyone, Arthas is the ONLY one that not only gets no redemption, but gets no afterlife

He gets oblivion