Blizzard finally told players where the big sword in WoW went after 8 years, and I'm just bummed out a reveal this cool was in an interview somewhere
It's been a meme for eight years—where's the sword, Blizzard? At the end of World of Warcraft: Legion, the big bad Sargeras tried to punch a big, corruptive sword into the heart of Azeroth. For years—eight years and nine months, to be exact—it's been a big, hanging question mark over the game's lore.
Especially given that, up until the Worldsoul Saga, Blizzard has been a little scattershot with its expansion ideas. The current trilogy is the company's first real, proper attempt at a multi-expansion storyline, à la Final Fantasy 14's 10-year epic that carried it from A Realm Reborn to Endwalker.
Which is why I'm a little bummed out, man. In an interview with WoWHead, associate game director Paul Kubit says that in the Midnight: What's Next recap, a screenshot of Azeroth's worldsoul with a jagged spike pointed towards it? Yeah, that's the sword. No—really, Kubit said "Yeah, yeah. That's the sword." Look:
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"Yeah, yeah. That's the Sword. Eagle-eyed viewers have identified that, and yeah, we've been thinking about the Sword and it should become very apparent to people as you play through Eclipse that we haven't forgotten about the Sword. This is not something that is going away. Also, how tragically close it came to the Worldsoul is a testament to how close he came, but also maybe the power of the Worldsoul herself."
(Image credit: Blizzard)
I'm bothered, somewhat, because on paper this is a super cool detail—look at that thing. It came literally feet away from punching into the centre of the world, which would've corrupted the entire planet with fel magic. Per WoW cosmology, it would've also stopped the void lords from turning it into a Dark Titan, which was kind of Sargeras' whole deal. But it also would've killed everybody, so—too many eggs for that omelette.
I'm imagining a world in which I dropped into this zone for the first time, saw that sword-tip inches away from Azeroth's soul, and went: Oh, crap. We were this close to the end of the world.
I'll keep things vague for spoiler reasons, but Final Fantasy 14—which keeps story elements under wraps before the patch or expansion they're due comes out—is really good at this. At several points in its winding 10-year story, a vista or an environment pulls double duty as part of the narrative: Like an impossible glimmering city under the ocean, or a heartachingly gorgeous faery landscape in a dying world.
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But WoW doesn't do this. It tests patches for weeks on the PTR with preview cutscenes and, as mentioned above, it reveals huge overarching narrative beats during interviews and press conferences—which robs Blizzard of a pretty solid tool in its arsenal: Letting the environment show you the story.
Rather than having an "oh, shit!" moment when I saw this sword while in Midnight's final raid, and slowly piecing it together, I have instead been told in a quote by a director that I will, in a handful of months, see exactly what he said I'd see. And, listen—even though I've been impressed by some elements of Midnight's story, it's not exactly gripped my heart like FF14's did. And as long as we live in a world where big reveals like this aren't treated with much sanctity, it's probably gonna stay that way.
