With Story Mode available for the final (of two) fights in the March on Quel'danas raid, it's now very easy to finish the campaign quests for the first patch of Midnight. We're going to talk about what happens here, what it implies, and where we think we're going next.
In other words, spoilers abound.
I'm undeniably old-school when it comes to WoW. I started playing at the tail end of Vanilla, and so I've been there for every expansion. In September, I'll have been playing for 20 years.
In those early expansions, the endgame was clear from the start. Shadowmoon Valley was a fel-scorched wasteland with the Black Temple looming (as much as any structure could loom in the days of pretty short draw-distances) and our confrontation with Illidan as the clear endpoint. It was Blizzard's first WoW expansion, and they had ambitiously wanted to get as much of it out as quickly as possible, meaning that its first and second raid tiers both came out at launch, and what was meant to be the final raid came out in 2.1. The expectation, of course, was that players would still have to spend months and months making their way through the content (not only did they need to gear up, but there were lengthy quest chains that required completing dungeons and raids before you could go to the next raid).
Still, having the final raid in the first major patch turned out to be a misstep, and so, maybe a year or so after launch, they created a sort of epilogue with the Sunwell Plateau raid, which gave us the Isle of Quel'danas and our first fight against Kil'jaeden. I think only like 3% of all players even set foot in Sunwell Plateau - raiding was considered an activity for hardcore players, like how Mythic Raiding is today.
Wrath of the Lich King, though, delivered on building to a final climax, and saved Icecrown Citadel, which had always loomed imposingly over Dalaran and all of Northrend (again, looming), with a promise that this would all end with us battling Arthas at the Frozen Throne, which we indeed did. (Yes, the Ruby Sanctum was technically the last raid in Wrath, but that was more of a prologue for Cataclysm).
But in Cataclysm, things changed.
In the leveling campaign for Cataclysm (which was nearly the entirety of the quests we did in that expansion) the final zone was Twilight Highlands, in which we built up to a fight against Twilight's Hammer in the Bastion of Twilight raid. But that plot was resolved in that first patch - we defeated Cho'gall (and Sinestra in heroic mode, which was the highest raid difficulty at the time. Mythic Raids came in I believe the Siege of Orgrimmar).
We knew very well that Deathwing would be the final boss of Cataclysm, but it was totally unclear where we would actually fight him. And that's kind of been the way that things have worked out since then: Blizzard tends not to really clue us in to what we're building to in an expansion. Mists was something of an exception: Blizzard announced in Blizzcon 2012 (if memory serves,) shortly before or maybe after Mists launched, that the final raid would be the Siege of Orgrimmar, with Garrosh as our final boss. But Warlords... was kind of a mess, and we thought Grommash would be the final boss in Hellfire Citadel - Hellfire Citadel was the final raid, but we also got one fewer raid tier than expected in that expansion and the whole Burning Legion angle was a bit of a surprise (in large part because that was kind of what the Iron Horde used to define its superiority over our Horde, that it was never corrupted by demons. Oops). Legion arguably did set up the Tomb of Sargeras from the start, but most of us assumed that Argus would be a full expansion, and Antorus had never been mentioned before. We also hadn't known that Argus was a Titan (/worldsoul? The lore established in Legion was that worldsouls were Titans, and in fairness, I think that that had probably always been intended given that Yogg-Saron refers to Azeroth as a "little seedling," but starting in Dragonflight, the notion that Azeroth is destined to be a Titan specifically has been called into question). BFA seemed to be setting up Sylvanas as our final boss, but the whole N'zoth angle snuck up on us, and again, I'd assumed Ny'alotha would have been a zone, rather than just a raid. Shadowlands made it pretty clear we were fighting the Jailer by the end, but we did Torghast early, and Zereth Mortis was a very new thing when it came out.
Basically, modern WoW, and honestly at this point most of WoW, plays a bit coy with us.
Midnight's leveling campaign built up Quel'danas as the real fundamental point of crisis for the expansion. But now, it's been resolved.
Let's recap (spoilers ahead):
The Voidspire raid does not go well. It ends with us forced to fight Alleria as the void overtakes her, and not only does Xal'atath stab her in the back in a manner that feels very lethal and final (but remember, WoW works on comic book rules,) but both she and Turalyon fall from the spire as it collapses and the essence of L'ura channels down into the Sunwell.
Not only is the Sunwell corrupted (again) to become the Darkwell, but these two heroes seem lost (Alleria pretty definitively... we think. I don't think Turalyon is dead because it feels like his arc isn't complete) as well as the entire Vanguard of the Light. (The champions who had been channeling light into the Sunwell seem to mostly survive - we have Anduin, Velen, Taelia, Faerin, and a few others confirmed to be ok).
Post-Voidspire, Arator goes around to the various elf nations to try to bring these disparate people together to take back the Sunwell (my human main just goes along with it). Between the Nightwell, the Well of Eternity, the Moonwells - elves seem to know their way around magic wells. Replacing the zealous (overzealous in many cases) forces of the Vanguard of the Light, the combined elvish host (and us, as raiders) push our way into Quel'danas and to the Darkwell, where we slay L'ura.
L'ura's death has little fanfare - in fact, the cinematic after we beat her doesn't even really show her. Instead, Xal'atath gloats a bit until a black arrow whizzes through one of her shoulder-spheres, temporarily dispelling it (I constantly want WoW to take its cosmic forces to weirder places, and so I always liked the idea that the two void orbs over her shoulders were actually what Xal'atath was, effectively puppeteering the high elf Inaris. But I think this moment kind of makes that impossible).
Anyway, out of a portal from the Shadowlands steps Sylvanas, whom Xal'atath confesses she truly had not considered in her grand plan. Hey, it's the battle of the evil girlbosses, and given that Sylvanas does actually seem to feel some remorse for what she has done, I'll take her.
Xal'atath descends through the Darkwell, and later dialogue suggests that she had been using it as a road for her Devouring Host to assault the World Soul, which might be setting up a later patch in Midnight or something in the Last Titan. But without L'ura, the Darkwell seems to not be quite as active anymore (not sure how Xal'atath used it, then, but whatever).
Sylvanas mentions that the Shadowlands are not what they seem, ominously teasing some future mystery that... might bear fruit way down the line? But she's somehow been able to take a sabbatical from her Sisyphean task of atonement (rescuing every last soul stuck in the Maw) to defend Quel'thalas once again.
This is particularly strange, because I could not find Sylvanas in the room after this cutscene, nor in the quests where we go to cleanse the Darkwell. Presumably she'll play some part moving forward, but I don't know what form that will take. (In the cutscene, Vereesa looks like she's about to punch the middle Windrunner sister, but instead embraces her - they've both just lost Alleria, and that's an opportunity to set aside bad feelings. Interestingly, I wonder if Sylvanas was immediately made aware that Alleria had arrived in the Shadowlands, you know, assuming she's actually dead).
Post-raid, we wrap up the story by doing a bit of fence-mending. Grand Magister Rommath, indebted to Magister Umbric and how his void magic did actually help save the day, allows Umbric to reclaim his old laboratory and open a Ren'dorei embassy in Silvermoon, as well as license to continue his research under close scrutiny (there's a bit of dialogue that I love, where Rommath says that Umbric is allowed to continue this research, but that he does not approve of it, to which Umbric replies that Rommath just literally approved this research). Also, Vereesa and Aethas Sunreaver meet. Verees says that the mission of the Silver Covenant was to oppose the Horde, but in light of the cooperation and moves toward reconciliation, she is officially disbanding it. The two sign a peace treaty (with us as the witness) and establish the Silversun Compact, ending all hostilities between the Sunreavers and the former members of the Silver Covenant, and allowing the Quel'dorei a place in Silvermoon once again.
Finally, the elves convene on the Darkwell, with each nation bringing some of their magical gifts to purify it. The Nightborne bring fruit from the Arcandor. The High Elves bring Anasterian's crown. The Night Elves bring Moonwell water. The Void Elves bring a void crystal (something Umbric has created to kind of balance and contain the void energies currently corrupting it). Finally, Liadrin imbues it with a little bit of holy light.
But unlike the reignition of the Sunwell in patch 2.4, the goal here is not to recreate an awesome font of magical power. The Darkwell is cleansed, but rather than becoming the Sunwell once more, it becomes the Dawnwell, which represents not just the blinding holy light or arcane energy, but a balance of disparate things. All in all, it's more mellow. We find that Alonsus Faol, who was unable to enter the Sunwell chamber before because of his undead status and his profound attunement to holy energy (which is why our Forsaken or Death Knight characters didn't have a problem,) now can.
The implications here are interesting: in BC, we saw that the Blood Elves who could not sate their magical addiction (using fel magic given to them by Illidan until the Sunwell was fixed by Velen) would devolve into the Wretched. Will the Dawnwell be able to nourish the Blood Elves despite its decreased power?
Basically, are we going to see the consequences of a less powerful font of magic on Quel'danas? I somehow doubt it - the power the Sunwell granted them was always kind of nebulously defined. I think Quel'thalas is still going to be filled with floating towers and such.
It is clear that while this was a short-term victory, Xal'atath is still on a winning streak, and her plans haven't been meaningfully disrupted.
But on the surface, quite literally, things seem somewhat settled.
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