"Leak" usually implies that someone surreptitiously and without permission gained knowledge of what a project team is working on and then shares that with the public. Today/yesterday's (it's late) "leak" of the 9.1 patch's content, thus, might not really qualify given that it was Blizzard itself that posted things to its own press release site. This was likely an accident, or less likely, an intentional hype-building strategy.
The info's out there and given that it comes from Blizzard itself, its credibility is very high.
But what does it mean?
Spoilers ahead, as this is not actually announced content yet:
The truth is that if you've been playing Shadowlands and keeping up with your covenant campaigns and, more importantly, your Torghast quest chain (the one where you rescue Baine, Jaina, and Thrall and eventually unlock the Twisting Corridors,) you've probably already got a good sense of where this is going.
If you had caught up with those quests and then defeated Sire Denathrius on any difficulty, you'll get a quest where you see a cutscene that shows what is happening in Torghast.
Sylvanas has spent months visiting Anduin in his magical prison within Torghast (a building that doesn't seem to have any real "important locations" aside from perhaps the Runecarver's prison - it's actually kind of unnerving that Anduin's more or less locked away in a random hallway, which shows how little the Jailer really puts value on... anything.) She has been trying to get him to join them, though frankly, her arguments haven't been very strong - more or less just saying "come on, do it," over and over, hoping that his boredom and despair will draw him.
But we find out that the Jailer is done waiting for her to convert him, and has Shalamane (or a sword similar to it) transformed into a Mourneblade - like Frostmourne before it. In our final vision into Torghast, we see Sylvanas present this new runeblade to Anduin, saying that she no longer has the option to gain his cooperation by anything other than force.
Notably, Sylvanas seems deeply torn by this - Anduin had previously suggested that her allegiance to the Jailer wasn't a choice, and that she wanted Anduin to join them willingly to validate her position. Whatever the case, Sylvanas has taken the plunge, and she's pulled Anduin with her. Our last image in the vision Bolvar has is Shalamourne (which is what I'm going to call it until we get a different name) pointed toward Anduin, the time for free will now at an end.
Thus, what has been hinted at strongly through 9.0 does seem to be coming: Anduin has been made into something like a new Lich King, forced into the role that Arthas chose for himself. With this, the Jailer has made a weapon that could overwhelm Azeroth. And it's going to be our job to raid the Sanctum of Domination in the hopes of freeing Anduin and dispensing with Sylvanas.
While 9.0 has hinted strongly at this next step, it does still raise some questions.
The Maw has been set up as the worst place imaginable, perhaps in the entire Warcraft Cosmos (though the Void could probably give it a run for its money.) Thus, it seemed highly possible that the entire expansion would be a build-up to a fight there. This model prevailed in the earliest expansions. In Burning Crusade, the Black Temple loomed over the setting as the clear final raid - the fact that it wasn't was more due to Blizzard's realizing their pacing had been wrong, releasing tiers 4 and 5 in 2.0 and what was meant as the final raid in 2.1, so they would later release Sunwell Plateau as the actual final raid of the expansion.
But Wrath seemed to do what they had originally intended with BC: Icecrown Citadel was clearly the raid the whole expansion was building to, and the building loomed over Northrend from 3.0 onward (again, there was technically another raid that came out later, but the Ruby Sanctum was more of a prologue for Cataclysm than actually part of Wrath's story, and, with one boss, was more of an "event" raid.)
The Maw seemed like this expansion's Icecrown or Shadowmoon Valley - the final challenge would loom above us all expansion long before we faced the dangers within. Admittedly, the existence of Torghast in its legendary-farming format does undercut that somewhat. And now, we see, it will not actually be the site of our final fight (or at least shouldn't be - I don't think people will be happy if the final raid is "the second Torghast raid,") which raises the question of where that actually will be.
There are two big questions I have about the Sanctum of Domination (SoD?) regarding the fate of characters within. It looks likely that we will fight both Anduin in his controlled Lich-King like form, as well as Sylvanas herself. What will be their fates, though?
I'm going to come right out and say I don't think they'll kill Anduin off. He's a character who basically embodies hope and optimism in the Warcraft universe. On top of that, killing him would mean an end to the Wrynn line. Sure, his death would be a George R. R. Martin-level shock and could really spur a whole identity crisis for the Alliance (already Turalyon's dialogue if you click on him in Stormwind is slightly worrying) but I think losing him, especially this early in Shadowlands, would kind of make the rest of the story just one major bummer.
Sylvanas, on the other hand, I think could really not make it out of here. She's had many opportunities for redemption, and she's rejected them. As popular a character as she is, she has been so irredeemably evil in the past couple expansions, and has also evaded justice so many times, that it feels like there's no reasonable way we get through this without her dying. (Granted, what it means for an undead person to die in the Shadowlands is sort of up in the air - I think generally if an undead person dies in the Warcraft cosmos in the land of the living, their soul travels to the Arbiter for judgement just like anyone else, and perhaps weighing their acts while undead in proportion to the degree of autonomy they possessed at the time.)
Importantly, if you've done the Night Fae campaign, the last you (and thus anyone) sees of Tyrande Whisperwind is in Torghast, where she is on the hunt for Sylvanas. While one of the three major stories of the Night Fae campaign is the long-term planning stage to try to save Tyrande from the destructive power of the Night Warrior, which seems like it could kill her if she's allowed to channel it for too long, that plot can't really move forward until we get her out of Torghast and out of the Maw. And I don't think she's going to let us do that while Sylvanas is walking around.
Sylvanas has shown signs that she wishes she hadn't gone down this road - when she asks what the Jailer's plan to recover Denathrius is and his response is that he's served his purpose and thus there is no rescue plan, I think Sylvanas is coming to realize that she is merely an arrow in the Jailer's quiver.
Is her regret simply the fear of being used up and discarded? Possibly. But Sylvanas is not like Gul'dan - she doesn't simply want power for power's sake. Sylvanas has always been guided by philosophical principles, and her assault on the Frozen Throne and her alliance with the Jailer seem to be motivated by some genuine belief that there are good ends to justify these evil means.
I think it's possible that Sylvanas is growing disillusioned with the Jailer, perhaps seeing that his motivations are purely hateful and power-hungry. In fact, it's possible that Sylvanas concluded at some point that the Jailer was Roko's Basilisk, and that the solution to that thought experiment was that you absolutely should choose to serve. Anyway, her discussions with Anduin seem to be filled with a sense of regret, and it's possible that she hates what her service to the Jailer has turned her into.
Redemption is a complex issue - and it's a subject our culture is so obsessed with that sometimes we're too eager to let someone off the hook for past misdeeds. And of all people, I think Anduin, should we free him from his transformation into... I'll just say the next Lich King, would be willing to give Sylvanas a shot at redemption.
But Tyrande won't. And so I think it's possible and even likely that we're going to see the end of Sanctum of Domination raid with Sylvanas surrendering to us, pleading for mercy and even offering to help us to fight the Jailer, and for Tyrande to arrive and take her revenge, cutting off that possibility and opportunity, not only for Sylvanas to redeem herself but also for her to help us with the Jailer.
Otherwise, I can't think of what reason they would have put Tyrande in Torghast.
Moving on, though!
The middle of this expansion is the part I feel the least confident about predicting. It's highly dependent on what happens by the end of the Sanctum of Domination, and if my prediction holds true or not. Indeed, I'm assuming here that A: we save Anduin and B: we do so in SoD. Neither of these is guaranteed.
I'd previously thought we might go to the Broker realm in the Shadowlands, but it sounds like that will be the 8-boss megadungeon. Another possibility would be somewhere in the land of the living, but I'm sort of hesitant to suggest that given that I think there's a lot more fun to be had in exploring, you know, the Shadowlands.
Personally, I expect the final raid to be set in Oribos itself - the Primus warned us that the Jailer would try to get to the Arbiter, and so I think it's very likely our final fight will be against the Jailer, the last line of defense to protect the Arbiter, who we might even wake up in beating the Jailer (unless she wakes up earlier.)
But let's consider the various elements at play here. There are several plot threads left hanging by the end of 9.0 (roughly where we are now, in-game.)
Anduin and Sylvanas are clearly being handled in 9.1.
The mystery of the Brokers and their intentions seems likely to conclude with the new quests and the new dungeon.
From the Kyrian campaign:
Uther turned himself in after helping to lead the Forsworn once he found out about Lysonia's ties to the Maw. He's well on the road to redemption, but there are two major problems. The first is that Uther's soul is divided, and we need to reintegrate him with the fragment of him that remains on Azeroth.
The second is that Arthas' soul is somewhere in the Maw, and it probably shouldn't be. This would be a compelling story in its own right, but through cutscenes starting in BFA, the game has been cinematically comparing Anduin with Arthas all this time - after all, both were young, idealistic princes who had a strong connection to the Light. Now, the Jailer is basically trying to reforge Anduin in Arthas' image. If we recover Arthas, maybe he can begin his road to redemption by helping undo what the Jailer is doing to Anduin. Uther could earn his redemption by recovering Arthas' soul, and Arthas could work toward his by helping Anduin.
From the Necrolords campaign:
While the House of Constructs has been defeated and the House of Rituals has been brought back into the fold, the House of the Chosen remains under the control of the treacherous Margrave Vyraz. Now, did Vyraz, like Sin'dane (and possibly Gharmal) simply think that they were flexing Maldraxxus' strength, preemptively attacking in an inevitable war over scarce resources, or was Vyraz aware that this was all the machinations of Kel'thuzad, and beyond him, the Jailer?
Speaking of which, Kel'thuzad was pulled away from Maldraxxus after his defeat at the hands of the Necrolords and the Venthyr Rebellion, and given that we know how the Jailer thinks of allies like Sire Denathrius, it seems clear that Kel'thuzad still has an important role to play.
From the Night Fae campaign:
Are the Drust done? The Night Fae campaign in 9.0 ends with the Night Fae expelling the Drust forces from Ardenweald, presumably sending them back to Thros. That might be the end of that story, but the truth is that we still know very little about them, and why what seemed to be just a small clan of vrykul from an island nation in Azeroth was able to be a major threat to one of the eternal lands of the afterlife.
Likewise, while the threat of Mueh'zalla seems to have been handled, we don't know what it means that Vol'jin has absorbed Rezan's loa-essence. Is Vol'jin going to become the new Loa of Kings? And what does that mean for the Troll people? And does it have anything at all to do with what is going on in this expansion?
Of course, the last story seems the most relevant: the big dangling thread is the Tyrande story. Last we checked in on that, the Night Fae have recruited the spirit of Huln Highmountain to search for all the souls of previous people who had served as the Night Warrior to help disperse the burden of its power with Tyrande and save her. But that search, itself a preliminary stage of the ultimate goal, hasn't even begun.
From the Venthyr campaign:
Denathrius' defeat obviously resolves the central conflict for the Venthyr. Renethal wishes to reform Revendreth and split power between the various Harvesters, but at the same time, he's been forging a crown that can channel the power of all the Harvester Medallions (a sort of benevolent One Ring to Rule Them All.) At this point, the only medallion we don't have is that of Wrath, but the Stonewright, who is the Harvester of Wrath, while far from friendly, appears to be motivated more by compassion for her Stoneborn children than any loyalty to Denathrius' evil. Indeed, given Denathrius' defeat and Renethal's likely rise to power in Revendreth, it seems like she'd be eager for him to take uncontested power so that her creations could stop fighting one another.
With the Medallion of Dominion recovered from Kel'thuzad, I don't know that the Venthyr have any particular interest in him anymore. So, there's not a lot to go on here.
So, overall, I really have very little sense of what 9.2 looks like. That might come into focus once we see how 9.1 goes, including the progression of the covenant campaigns.
Obviously, some of the stuff we see in Shadowlands will wind up feeding into the next expansion, and I don't really know which elements will do so. Indeed, we could even get some clarifications at Blizzconline tomorrow - when Blizzcon 2016 hit, we got a lot of info about the Tomb of Sargeras patch and then had a hell of a cliffhanger teaser by telling us that 7.3 would take us to Argus. This Blizzcon is at a weird time of year, not to mention during an expansion that has had a weird schedule due to the pandemic. In fact, given how many months into Shadowlands we are before getting 9.1, it seems almost more likely that we'll get a tease of 9.2.
Ask me again after the weekend, I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment