The narrative of the World Soul Saga continues to build with the constant plans and schemes from Xal’atath, with Azeroth’s future growing darker as we approach The Last Titan. Recently, game director Ion Hazzikostas and design director Maria Hamilton spoke about Midnight and the trilogy as a whole, confirming that some important characters will not survive the trilogy.
In the End, Death Claims Us All
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Design Director Maria Hamilton discussed Blizzard’s ongoing effort to raise the stakes and the narrative momentum that’s been building since The War Within.
“There will be important characters that do not survive the trilogy. It’ll be a lot of death, I’m afraid. Those are hard decisions. We have arguments about, ‘Is this the right time? What will we do with that person gone?”
Plenty of characters already feel like likely death candidates, but the bigger question is what the World Soul Saga is really building toward. Is it laying the groundwork for a long-theorized World of Warcraft sequel, or setting up something closer to Final Fantasy XIV’s A Realm Reborn–style reset?
Who Lives and Who Dies in Midnight?
It’s hardly ever a fun time theorizing character deaths, especially for some folks who have been around for over 20 years. But many people still speculate that Thrall is one of the more likely characters to meet their end in Midnight or The Last Titan.
Thrall barely had any sort of involvement in The War Within, despite being on all of the promotional material and the loading screen for the zone. Thrall lost his connection to the elements, and while we originally thought we would see a paired story with both Thrall and Anduin going through a similar journey to reclaim their faith and powers, Thrall has been absent.
Plus, pair this with the fact that he no longer has Doomhammer since Legion, and his death could set up the role for his son. But aside from Thrall, there are some other considerable options.
Turalyon and Alleria could be other possible candidates since both are becoming more central to WoW’s story, along with the consistent themes of the Light and the Void. Lor’themar could be up there for the same reasons, especially since Midnight’s story will heavily involve both Blood and the Void Elves.
Genn Greymane also stands out as a strong possibility, since he’s already achieved his long-term goals. He’s reclaimed Gilneas, the Forsaken no longer threaten his people, and that makes him another “easy” character to take off the board.
I See… Only Darkness… Before Me
Overall, we will have to wait and see, but game director Ion Hazzikostas also has this to say. “Sometimes Chekhov’s Gun, or Chekhov’s Sword, as the case may be. Is going to lie there for a couple of expansions before something comes of it. Get used to that.”
Regardless if this comes as a shock to fans or not, it’s not out of the ballpark for how The Last Titan is starting to shape up. With popular fan theories about Azeroth’s Prime World Soul eventually being born, the planet may split open as if hatching from an egg. Which would likely leave the world that players have been defending for years, broken.
Of course, it all comes back to the sword, I mean, what sword?
But then again, the catalyst for how and why this all will happen is not fully clear to us. So, for now, all we can do is see how Midnight unfolds and what Xal’atath will do next.
