If the Secret Organization is Not Blessed, What Is It?

 Ok, this is sort of spoiler territory for Control Resonant, but it's so rife with speculation that I don't know that I could really call it such.

Across the "Altered Manhattan" of Control Resonant, Dylan can discover several hidden outposts whose documents are archived under "Secret Organization." My initial guess at them was that they belonged to the Blessed Organization.

If you're unfamiliar, the Blessed Organization is a sort of faction that appears to be opposed to the FBC and has been involved in the creation of or at least distribution of altered items with an apparent intent to cause chaos and death.

Periodically, businesses going by the name "Blessed" something or another, will be involved in some event involving an Altered Item. The origins seem to go back to the 1990s, when a motivational speaker going by the name of Chester Bless (I'm guessing a pseudonym) would go on tour with a surf board that had paranatural properties. While the FBC was able to track down the board itself, Bless evaded them.

Notably, the motivational speaking events had a slogan talking about the Power of the Board, using the surf board's apparent ability to confer a sense of boldness and confidence in people. However, the emphatic use of this capitalized "Board," and Blessed's clear knowledge of the FBC, suggest this may have been a cheeky or taunting reference to The Board, the extradimensional entity that has been attached to the FBC since Northmoor made contact with it back in the 1960s.

The FBC has seemed to have had contact with members of the organization. In the first game, we get the recording of an interrogation with a suspected member that goes pretty horribly, as the FBC agent struggles to avoid using any Bureau terminology that he's not allowed to reveal to civilians, while the suspect seems to know quite well such terms.

Blessed is known to have sent an altered item that killed an FBC employee, mailing a fondue kit to the studio of America Overnight, a late-night radio show designed to monitor stories of paranormal phenomena and disseminate Bureau-approved narratives surrounding them. The fondue kit seemed to burn the agent to ashes in mere moments, to the shock and horror of her co-worker and, it turned out, romantic partner.

Worryingly, in Alan Wake II, Barry Wheeler, in emails to Alice Wake, says that he met Chester Bless at one of the Organization's front businesses (some sort of health club) while acting as executive producer on the Alex Casey films in Hollywood. While Barry, given what we know about him, is unlikely to be a willing participant in this violent criminal activity, he does seem to now have a substantial connection to the organization. When Alice moved out of Parliament tower, the moving boxes with the few remaining items of hers and Alan's that are left there have "Blessed" printed on them.

(It is my, and as far as I can tell, mine alone, interpretation that the "organization" that helped Alice recollect her memories from 2010 was not the FBC, but Blessed, and that her visit to the Oldest House was a separate event.)

Blessed does play a role in Control Resonant, in a side quest involving a set of speakers, which Dylan must collect. These speakers have various effects on people, ultimately seeming to put multiple consciousnesses and personalities into a single body, but among the sources of the speakers is a business called Blessed Antiques.

However, it is the very presence of Blessed in this side quest that makes me skeptical of my initial assessment of the "Secret Organization" being Blessed. At no point is this other organization affiliated with the word Blessed, and what we can gather of its attitudes and goals does not seem consistent with Blessed.

Here's what we know about the Secret Organization:

They have hideouts underneath various businesses across Manhattan, all of which seem to be part of chains (though this might be simply because of video game efficiency - Remedy didn't have the budget to make a bunch of different types of coffee shop, so every one we can visit in the game is part of the Atlantis Cafe chain, for example).

The Secret Organization appears to be well-funded, with extensive supplies including weapons and, of course, these secret hidden doors in the backs of Manhattan businesses.

Like the FBC, they have documentation that uses standardized forms, as well as some of their own terminology. The terminology is notably different from that of the FBC, such as the use of the term "extranormal" rather than "paranatural."

A letter in the first hideout you can find reminds agents that they do not have an adversarial relationship with the FBC, but further emphasizes that, nor do they have a friendly relationship with the FBC.

The secret organization has a symbol that appears like a keyhole perhaps with an eye in the upper, circular part. I've seen people compare this to the eye of the Former (who does not seem to have put in an appearance as far as I can tell, in Resonant,) though I don't know that I can draw that as a direct connection.

What I find significant about this symbol is its sort of more occult design. While I think you could make an argument that the FBC's logo is itself somewhat occult in nature (an argument that extends to the seals of other, real-world American government agencies,) the Secret Organization's icon does not read like a US government agency logo.

If I recall correctly, we only get one voice recording of a member of the agency. In it, a woman speaks with what sounds like a Russian accent, and so I've seen some theorize that this organization could be the Russian equivalent of the FBC. There's certainly precedent here: given the historical rivalry between the US and Russia, there have certainly been well-funded Russian spies in New York both when they were working for the KGB and today as part of the FSB, so if the FBC is basically the "FBI for weird stuff," then an equivalent Russian agency spying on American efforts is pretty reasonable.

That said, it's not obvious that this particular individual is indicative of the national origins of the whole organization - for one thing, I might have the accent wrong. But also, this could be some kind of NGO that works across borders.

One thing that also really differs from FBC practice is that the Secret Organization appears to have protocols for the destruction of Altered Items (or Extranormal Objects, or whatever their term is). We hear a report of an agent giving his life to see one such item unmade (I can't remember exactly what the term was... was it "dispersed?") This appears to have been a voluntary act, a sort of suicide mission, and while I've seen some speculation that this was a human sacrifice, I'm not ready to make that leap - perhaps this was less of a death ritual and more like a heroic soldier throwing himself on a grenade.

The Organization seems to be highly compartmentalized, and I'm not sure if discussion about avoiding "the French Delegation" is about an actual diplomatic delegation there at either the Consulate or the U.N., or if it's the French delegation from their own organization. If it's the latter, that would I think suggest that this isn't some Russian agency, but perhaps more of an international group.

There is a note about one of the cells having to be abandoned after the group was sold out by someone named Larry, but it's not clear to whom.

There are subtle hints, I think, that the organization might not be quite as professional as its protocols and clearly well-funded secret doors and stocks of assault rifles would suggest. Indeed, the recorded message we get has the woman complain that they've been tasked with surveillance for a very long time without relief. I imagine that a professional agency would have a system in place for rotating people out if they're just on watch duty. The recording is found in the first of these hideouts, in the Atlantis Cafe right across from the Oldest House (actually probably the one featured in the announcement trailer,) where they were tasked with monitoring the entrance of the building over lockdown.

Funnily enough, it appears the nearby laundromat was being used as a location for FBC agents to keep an eye on their own headquarters, and the two groups interacted (the Organization spotted Jesse walking in in 2019, but had no idea who she was). The woman who made the recording had an interaction with these agents - though while she identified them as FBC, they didn't seem to clock she was anyone other than a parking attendant.

So, I have the following potential scenarios:

First, that this is another country's FBC equivalent, either Russia's or perhaps a joint EU one. I'm disinclined to believe - while the members of the Organization are very dedicated and committed, there's a certain organizational messiness to it - and while that certainly isn't unheard of in government agencies, it doesn't really feel like these people have a robust support network behind them.

The second is that they are Blessed. I just don't think that the game points to that, mainly because we do see Blessed involved in the speaker quest, but at no point are these people linked with that story.

Lastly, we come to what I think is the most compelling scenario: that this is a non-governmental entity, likely funded by someone with a lot of money, but who is doing this for personal reasons (maybe ideological). Some ultra-wealthy person at the top would have the resources to build these facilities and hire people to work clearly very difficult jobs in rough conditions, but might not have their own personal history in intelligence work to know all the best practices when running a clandestine program on this scale.

Finally, as a bonus theory: here's my crazy tin-foil hat. This is absolutely just my "stitching together clues that might not have anything to do with one another" ideas, but hear me out:

What if this is being run by Alan Wake?

In the "Master of Many Worlds" video we find in... I think the Evac Zone? Or maybe the Park? Anyway, the one with Alan in it, he is wearing a jacket with a patch for "A Watchful Eye Security Company," with the initials for A Watchful Eye, AWE, displayed prominently in the middle.

The Organization's symbol does look like a keyhole, yes, but also with what seems to be an eye in it (like someone peeping in through a keyhole). Is this that very same Watchful Eye?

Consider this:

In 2012, Sam Lake (never technically confirmed, but we'll see why it's pretty clear he did) created a blog called This House of Dreams, which introduced the town of Ordinary, Maine, and was ostensibly the blog of a woman named Samantha Wells (get it, Samantha Wells, Sam Lake?) who moved into one of the abandoned houses in Ordinary and began fixing it up (evidently part of a push to repopulate the town after the vanishings in 2002). Samantha finds a shoebox filled with the poetry of Thomas Zane.

While there was a possibility that this blog's connection to Alan Wake as a game was just some creative fan project, by Alan Wake II, we had characters like Tom Zane quoting the poems found in that blog. Also, the appearance of Ordinary, Maine as a crucial location in Control seemed to point to this being made with some intimate prior knowledge of what Remedy was planning.

Anyway, the conclusion of the blog sees Samantha encountering what appear to be government agents wearing windbreakers with the letters "AWE" on them, who come to confiscate the poems.

Now, I think the general consensus is that the "Department of AWEs" was the working title of the Federal Bureau of Control, and that this was something of a retcon to make it sound a bit more plausible as the name of a government agency, and to play into the thematic idea of Control in that franchise. And honestly, I think that's probably the explanation.

But Remedy, and Sam Lake in particular, has shown a propensity for utilizing ideas he came up with long, long ago for future games. Consider how the TV show, Address Unknown, in I believe Max Payne 2, a surreal Lynchian noir, winds up more or less predicting the structure of Alan's journey through the Dark Place. (Indeed, if we assume that the Max Payne games follow the plots of Alan's Alex Casey books, could Alan have actually written Address Unknown into his own novels, and then dug up those ideas to structure his journey through Initiation?)

The point, though, is that if those windbreakers with AWE on them are not actually government uniforms but are actually the uniforms for a private security company that Alan has created (perhaps writing it into existence,) might the Secret Organization be... A Watchful Eye?

It's the biggest stretch, of course, but it's food for thought.

The State of the Keepers

 When we arrived in Northrend back in 2008 at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, the undead Scourge was certainly our top priority. The Scourge has a significant presence in every zone except possibly Crystalsong Forest (though Icecrown Citadel looms large over it,) though I think the zone it probably has the least presence in (Grizzly Hills gives it a run for its money) is Storm Peaks, because, well, frankly, there's other important stuff going on there.

When we arrived, we got swept into a very convoluted quest chain that had us first helping some goblins deal with some rogue Vrykul, then helping said Vrykul deal with hostile giants, then working with said giants to uncover some of the mysteries of what the hell had happened with the Keepers of Ulduar. Ultimately, we teamed up with Thorim, and discovered the treachery of Loken, his brother (so to speak) who had been corrupted by Yogg-Saron. How long ago had this happened? Like, tens of thousands of years ago, if not more.

Ulduar's significance at the time was primarily that it served as the prison for Yogg-Saron, one of Azeroth's four Old Gods, but it was also the home of the Keepers, the leaders of the Titanforged on Azeroth, effectively making Ulduar the central command for the Titans' facilities on Azeroth.

The Keepers, if I recall correctly, were Thorim, Hodir, Mimir, Freya, Loken, and Tyr, and we would later find that Ra (known as Ra-Den to the Mogu,) Archaedas, Ironaya, and Odyn were also among their number.

Exploring Storm Peaks, we found that all Keepers' respective temples were abandoned, though Tyr's had been for a very long time. Gradually, we pieced together that Loken had been corrupted by Yogg-Saron, gradually capturing the other Keepers and placing them under a kind of mind control. Tyr had uncovered this treachery long ago, and fled south to what are now the Eastern Kingdoms, where Loken sent a pair of C'thraxxi to kill him, one of them succeeding in what would become Tirisfal (literally "Tyr's Fall"). Actually, the other C'thraxxi would attack Zul'Aman, and ultimately be defeated by Ula'tek, though only imprisoned (which is why we'll have to fight Kithix in the upcoming 12.1.5 patch). I believe Archaedas and Ironaya left either with Tyr or around the same time, both ultimately falling to... um... us, in Uldaman (whoops!)

Odyn likely left before all of this went down, because he threw a hissy fit when Tyr empowered the Dragon Aspects after their help fighting Galakrond, feeling that they should not rely on beings that weren't direct creations of the Titans. Ra had left after Sargeras defeated the rest of the Titans and a fragment of their souls found their way into the Keepers, overwhelmed and seemingly the only one who really understood what had happened. (Though this must have happened after Loken programmed the Curse of Flesh into the creation forges, as Ra-Den accidentally spread it like a computer virus to the Mogu).

Truly, the timeline here is a little tricky, especially because we don't really have a calendar system in Azeroth - the War of the Ancients was ten thousand years ago, and I think we have a handful of events that are put in relation to that (I think the War of the Satyr was a thousand years later, and the War of Shifting Sand was only a thousand years before the present day).

I actually don't remember if Ironaya and Archaedas were technically Keepers, or perhaps Watchers, which I believe is a lower rank.

But last we checked, here's where each individual is at:

Thorim should be at Ulduar, and was most recently seen helping Beast Mastery Hunters claim Titanstrike back in Legion. He seems fine.

Freya should also be ok at Ulduar, having been freed from Loken's madness in the raid and, like Thorim, helped us fight Yogg-Saron (unless we wanted to get the cool mount).

Mimiron is the rebuilt body of Mimir, who created the Mechagnomes (not to be confused with the playable Mechagnomes, who, like the standard Gnomes, were Flesh-Cursed versions of the original Mechagnomes, but just underwent cybernetic upgrades to try to return to their Titanforged roots). After he was slain I believe by Loken, his creations came and built him a new body that appears like a giant Mechagnome. Again, we freed him from Loken's subsequent madness and he helped us out.

Hodir is in the same camp, freed from the madness and back to his old business. The war between giants in Storm Peaks was always actually a little vague, but given that it was all started by Loken, perhaps it has settled.

Loken is dead. After Odyn left, Loken became the Prime Designate, and thus effectively leader of the Keepers, which meant that his death at our hands triggered the Re-Origination contingency, though once we fought hard enough to convince him, Constellar Alganon the Observer decided to abort the process.

Odyn was trapped by Helya, his vrykul protege, within his sort of false afterlife, the Halls of Valor, where he seemed to have used the knowledge he gained by trading his eye to Mue'zhalla to make a weird facsimile of Bastion and his own pseudo-Kyrians, the Val'kyr, which, ironically, Arthas would then copy himself to make undead Val'kyr out of the Vrykul whose loyalty he secured. While Helya committed great crimes, a lot of that was apparently revenge for Odyn being just an absolute fuckwad to her. With Helya's death in her own false afterlife of Helheim, Odyn was able to leave the Halls of Valor and announced an intent to go back to Ulduar, so we can probably assume he's there.

Archaedas is dead, slain by us in Vanilla before we knew all that much about the Titans or their creations in the first place. Same goes for Ironaya. Real failure to communicate here.

Ra-Den was captured by Lei Shen, the Thunder King, his heart used as a source of power to, I think, reverse the Curse of Flesh. After who knows how long deep down within the Throne of Thunder (wait, have I never gone and done that fight?) we fight him to knock some sense back into him. However, while fighting off the madness of N'zoth, Ra-Den is captured and taken to Ny'alotha, where he is corrupted and we are forced to kill him for real.

Tyr died in the early days of humanity, but in Dragonflight, we were able to reconstruct a body for him and bring him back to life. Tyr seems... very depressed, but he also does seem to remain the pro-mortal champion that inspired, among other things, the Knights of the Silver Hand.

So, that means that most of the Keepers are actually still alive. What, then, though, flows from that?

Well, there's a pretty strong implication that The Last Titan is going to see us find ourselves in an antagonistic relationship with the Titans and the Titanforged, as we've strayed pretty damn far from their original designs (those of us who are even descended from their creations) and the Titans' benevolence has seemed less of a given of late, especially when their "Ordering" of Azeroth starts to look like a kind of Black Empire with different aesthetics (why was the Worldsoul relocated from Harandar to the Titan-created Worldcore? Harandar certainly doesn't seem like a hotbed of Old God corruption).

Still, I'm not convinced the Titans as a whole, nor their creations, are going to be unified in a condemnation of the mortals of Azeroth. While Aman'thul seems to be the patriarch of the Pantheon and is likely sort of... patriarchal in his attitude. We know that he objected to incorporating the power of Life into Azeroth when Eonar was doing her work on it because it wasn't something they understood and could control.

Indeed, Aman'thul is the first of the Pantheon, and helped to "awaken" the other Titans. Did this involve forcing them into a form similar to his own?

Among the Keepers, Odyn seems by far the most likely to be an antagonist. I mean, the guy was kind of a douchebag even when we met him in Legion, and while he was friendly enough to us, he was deeply patronizing, and we know that he did awful things to Helya and also made some really shady deals, like trading his eye to Mue'zallah, who then passed it on to the Jailer.

Given Eonar's general embrace of Life as a power (also, the fact that her spirit was hiding out on a world called Elunara suggests she has some alliance/connection with Elune, who appears to be some sort of Life Goddess) I'm inclined to think she'll be on our side, and perhaps because of that, Freya will as well (as Eonar's most direct creation among the Keepers).

Tyr also seems likely to be on our side, as he seems the most willing to go against the grain and fight on behalf of mortals.

The other surviving Keepers, though... I could see going either way. I don't know if our efforts in Ulduar earned us any slack, but given that the Titanforged are kind of by design sort of rigid in their ways, I wouldn't count on them being friendly.

Remaining Questions After Control Resonant

 I've only been waiting for three years to play the sequel to Control, as I was only sort of vaguely aware of it when it came out in 2019 and didn't play it until 2023, but given how much I fell in love with both it and the Alan Wake games, which are set within the same universe (universes, technically) I found myself really champing at the bit to continue the story of the Faden siblings and the deeply flawed and problematic federal bureau that has played such a huge role in their lives.

Remedy loves raising more questions than they provide answers. Resonant tells us a few things, but it also leaves some open for interpretation and then further just raises more questions.

I'm not going to be able to talk about every mystery, reveal, and open-ended question here, but I'll center on the ones I find most interesting and compelling.

And obviously, we're going to put this behind a spoiler cut.

Control Resonant and the Faden Siblings

 Control as a franchise, and Remedy as a studio, likes to lean into multilayered narratives. There's a straightforward story, the secrets behind that story, and then the deeper mysteries that we're left to speculate about.

Resonant's reluctance to say anything explicit about the Blessed Organization or its part in what goes on in Manhattan (my theory is that they were only observing, rather than instigating) ties into this: while we Remedy Sickos can speculate ourselves to insanity about Blessed, the games seem to be happy letting this be a background detail that doesn't really get into the spotlight.

There's another pretty out-there idea that was first presented in Control that gets some real fuel in Resonant.

Let's talk about Jesse Dylan Faden.

Control Resonant Complete

 I have beaten Control Resonant.

As one might expect given the first game, there's a post-game state in which you can get a bit of denouement and see where the state of things lands. I'll go light on details until we get past the spoiler cut, but I will say that I'm... not crazy about the final boss fight, to be honest. Again, details to follow, but in a game with some genuinely stellar bosses, the grand finale feels a bit like, well, the sort of underwhelming bosses that Remedy has often been criticized for in the past.

There is a New Game Plus mode that becomes available, though I'm probably not going to jump into that until I've really cleared out nearly everything, and given that I don't think there's any Final Draft-like "true ending" to it, I'm not really champing at the bit for it.

I liked the game, obviously, though I don't know where it really ranks. I think on paper, it's probably a better game overall than the first Control, but it's also less revelatory in that we already know this world (it's fitting that Dylan already knows a bunch about the FBC and its terminology, as we don't really need to go over everything again). The combat is better-balanced (Control's combat was great but you hit a point where using the Service Weapon was really just what you did while you waited for your power to recharge to do Launch again) and there's more of it.

Ok, let's actually talk about how it ends:

Speculation on Alan Wake III

 I got so jazzed by the Alan Wake easter egg in Control Resonant. While I think the "RCU" will benefit from having other series outside of Control and Alan Wake, I'm obviously just so enamored with Alan Wake as a series that I can't help but find my mind fixating on it.

Alan Wake II might not be my favorite game in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay (though I'd be curious to revisit it having now played a few other Survival Horror games) but it's right at the top for use of video games as an artistic medium, telling a story like none other I've seen in gaming in a manner unlike any I've seen in gaming (and honestly, playing into my own tastes as someone influenced by David Lynch as well as lots of twisty stories about dubious perception of reality, like Fight Club.)

(Sidenote: Fight Club is one of those movies where saying you're a fan kind of invites some follow-up questions, as there are plenty of people who seemed to miss the whole point of it. If you thought that the Fight Club video game where you could unlock Fred Durst as one of the fighters was a good idea that was consistent with the themes of the movie... I think you might need to re-think what that movie is about. Though hey, I never played that game, and maybe it was doing something subversive and ironic. I doubt it, but I can't say for sure. Suffice to say: if you thought Tyler Durden was super cool and aspirational... I don't think you understood that movie.)

Anyway, Remedy has shown a willingness to go in very different directions with its sequels. While I actually don't think that Control Resonant feels unrecognizable compared to the first game, even with the shift to melee combat (we still, for example, are encouraged to play aggressively thanks to the health fragments dropped by foes, and there's a lot of floating in the air dodging things) we certainly saw a pretty big shift in Alan Wake's gameplay from a more action-oriented style to the slow-paced survival horror of the second game (though still keeping the signature "first flashlight, then gun" pattern.)

Thus, I'd be really curious to see whether a hypothetical Alan Wake III would shift things again.

First off, let's talk about the plausibility of a third game. The second game's true ending (the Final Draft version) sees Alan reawaken from his "death" with the Bullet of Light having gained the knowledge of his past cycles through the events of the game, and having become what he calls the Master of Many Worlds. There's something a bit ominous to that name, as an expansion of Joseph Campbell's "Master of Two Worlds" end-state for the Hero's Journey.

What seems won at the end of the second game is that A: the "Bright Falls AWE 2023" has ended, with no more Taken threatening the town or the world, and B: that Alan is finally out of the Dark Place (my understanding is that the Writer's Room he's in at the end is literally the room in the Valhalla Nursing Home, rather than the one in the Dark Place - though it's interesting that the Valhalla Nursing Home seems to have kind of become the "retconned" version of Bird's Leg Cabin).

Saga's story seems resolved: Logan has been rescued from the childhood death that was written into the story, and is now alive again, and this likely means Saga's life is back to how it was prior to arriving in Bright Falls. But Saga is also now initiated into the Weird and aware of her own parautilitarian nature. I do wonder if she'll stick with the FBI or join the FBC - certainly I can imagine Estevez would be eager to recruit her. I don't know whether Saga is likely to play as prominent a role in the next game, though her connection to Mr. Door could potentially draw her back into the conflict. Part me just wants her to be able to live her life again and not deal with all of this horror.

While Alan is victorious in the end, he's also kind of right back where he started: Alice is once again in the Dark Place, and while she seems to be better-equipped to handle that, he's still motivated to return to her. (Isn't it interesting that both Control and Alan Wake are stories in which people are struggling to reunite? I still haven't finished Control Resonant, but Dylan spends the bulk of it trying to find his sister, when the first game was motivated primarily by Jesse trying to find him).

It's interesting that it's implied that Alan's attempts to escape were so convoluted simply because he made it so convoluted, thinking it had to be. Thus, I wonder if his next plan to rescue Alice is going to be similarly convoluted and cause a bunch of other problems that will give us the events of a third game.

Sure, he's seemed to experience some kind of spiritual growth, but he's still Alan.

If the video we find in Resonant is any actual hint at what might happen in a future game (and that's a big if) here are the elements I think it could point to:

First, that he might be teamed up with Alex Casey. This does present a challenge given that Casey's voice actor, James McCafferey, died shortly after AWII's release. But unless he had also done any VO work necessary for the Max Payne remakes, I'd assume that they'll be looking for a sound-alike who can take over the role.

If we assume that retired FBI agent Alex Casey and long-missing author Alan Wake do actually found a Security company called A Watchful Eye (presumably as part of a scheme to investigate paranormal stuff,) perhaps the game will lean into a kind of mystery-solving gameplay system. (Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a narrative Alan creates for them to get into the Dark Place.)

Alan Wake II was initially planned to have a mystery-solving mini-game that Saga would do in her chapters. But Remedy realized that they would effectively be making an entire other game to cram into its Survival Horror game and felt that this would A: take too much effort and B: might frustrate players in Saga's segments.

But a whole new game might be the perfect time to introduce this as the core gameplay system. Maybe they can take ideas they came up with for that and flesh them out into a new mystery game in which Alan and Alex solve paranatural mysteries as they search for Alice.

Now, why is Alex Casey involved here? Well, first off, he was a professional investigator, so he'd be a good person for Alan to have. But they're also two people who were hosts of the Dark Presence, and I imagine that might have forged a bond between them. (Also, it lets Sam Lake show his mug all over the game, which I know he loves to do.)

Obviously, Remedy hasn't actually announced anything (I think the only projects they actually have lined up are the Max Payne remakes - and I wonder to what extent those are just going to be straight-up faithful recreations of the games or if they'll inject more RCU connections into them) but here's hoping.

The State of the Scourge in The Last Titan

 The Scourge are my favorite villain faction in World of Warcraft. Indeed, they've had a pretty huge influence on my fantasy tastes in the 20 years I've played this game. Going into WoW, perhaps thanks to watching through all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in my freshman year, I was all about demons as fantasy monsters to fight (in the Buffyverse, vampires are sort of undead but are technically a demon possessing a dead body, though the demon retains all the memories of the person that had died. Also, demons in that universe aren't inherently evil, though vampires are except in the rare cases, like two of them, where they have their human soul returned to them).

I had even kind of avoided playing an Undead character simply because I sort of assumed Undead players were all edgelords. And then I made one and I had a dark realization - that I'm a bit of an edgelord myself.

I will say that the utter menace that the Vanilla Plaguelands held got lost a bit in the Cataclysm revamp. The Western Plaguelands are more of a battleground between Alliance and Horde while the Eastern Plaguelands, though they do remain a hotbed of Scourge corruption, give us a somewhat more innocent story of the Paladin Pals and Fiona's caravan going around the zone. Back in Vanilla, both zones felt oppressive and hostile, and Light's Hope chapel truly felt like a tiny bastion of safety in the midst of a hostile land. A few details reinforced that: for one thing, Light's Hope didn't have any of the fortifications it does now, and was just a single little church building mostly in ruins that the Argent Dawn was posted up at (they even had a neutral and interactable Scarlet Crusade representative there, desperate for any help). Also, in the original level ranges, the Eastern Plaguelands was one of the highest-level zones in the game (maybe the highest? I think you wouldn't start getting quests there until 55 or so).

Icecrown is also a zone that I think radiates menace better than just about any other we've visited. Possibly the Antoran Wastes or The Maw give it a run for its money (I have so many thoughts on the Maw, primarily that the things I liked most about it were what a lot of players complained about, and I felt it got ruined in 9.1). The Scourge were a constant presence in Wrath of the Lich King, with at least some presence in each zone (maybe not Crystalsong Forest? But there was barely anything there).

But the Scourge is not what it once was. Originally created as a cannon fodder to clear the way for the Burning Legion's invasion in the Third War, Ner'zhul and Arthas managed to break away from the yoke of the Legion following Arichimonde's defeat on Mount Hyjal, and when Arthas became the Lich King, we had the period of "peak Scourge" that ran from the end of the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III to the end of Wrath of the Lich King. (Bizarrely, their only real presence on Kalimdor post-Third War was in Razorfen Downs, where they were secretly corrupting and empowering the Quillboar - which comes as a real surprise when you quest through the Barrens given that there's no real hint of undeath elsewhere in the zone).

I think it's also notable that not all undead in WoW is Scourge - there are plenty of ghosts (particularly of ancient Night Elves who perished in the War of the Ancients or the Sundering) but we even see zombies and even Abominations pop up in places like Duskwood, where the corruption is probably coming more from Karazhan or just, you know, ancient curses and old crimes.

But still, the Scourge was the only real example we had of a disciplined and organized effort to convert the entire world into undead.

Arthas' death led to the crowning of Bolvar Fordragon as the third and final Lich King. In theory, this was necessary as a means to keep control over the Scourge and prevent them from running rampant over Azeroth. Now, I've often wondered if that was actually any worse than having someone like Arthas commanding them in an organized manner. While I do think the intent by the game's writers was that this would be somehow worse, it's easy enough to headcanon that, less than a warning of how bad it could get, Terenas' warning was more like "hey, you have a huge opportunity here to force the Scourge into just staying here frozen in Icecrown and not bothering people if someone with a strong enough will becomes Lich King." Bolvar's reign largely accomplished that. While he directed the Knights of the Ebon Blade to do some deeply questionable (ok, maybe just bad) things in their class campaign in Legion (the attack on Light's Hope - to be fair, I think Bolvar anticipated that it would be Darion and not Tirion who would be raised as the fourth horseman, but it did get a lot of paladins killed, and the attack on the Ruby Sanctum was also pretty indefensible,) for the most part, the Scourge ceased to be much of a threat.

He didn't have a short leash on everyone, though: we do see in those Cataclysm-era Eastern Plaguelands quests that there are still Scourge forces and the Cult of the Damned trying to cease the healing of the land and corrupt it further, like their attempt to make Gidwin into a Death Knight. But these splinter factions of Scourge are clearly not very powerful. There's a Crypt Lord who claims to be the new leader of the Scourge whom we take out in a fairly simple quest there.

Shadowlands complicated the Scourge narrative a lot: while the Shadowlands had been established as early as Wrath (Death Knight get their Acherus Deathcharger by journeying into the Shadowlands,) the actual structure of the plane was elaborated on quite a lot - initially, the Shadowlands were presented lik the Emerald Dream, as a kind of parallel plane to the mundane world, a bit like how in D&D the Feywild and Shadowfell are both reflections of the Prime Material plane. Indeed, my interpretation was (and still is, sort of) that when we die in-game and are in our spirit form to go reclaim our body, that "ghost world" we're in is The Shadowlands. The presentation of the plane in the expansion of the same name does seem to refute this, but it might be similar to D&D's Ethereal Plane, where there's the "Border Ethereal" that overlaps the Prime Material and can be used as a means to pass unseen and even through objects like walls, and the "Deep Ethereal," which is an endless misty expanse where one can find portals to other inner planes like the Feywild, Shadowfell, or the Elemental Planes. So, maybe the "ghost world" is the "Border Shadowlands" while the place we visited with Bastion and Revendreth is the "Deep Shadowlands." Just like in D&D, it's simpler to get into the Border region than it is to go to the deep region of the plane.

Anyway, beyond having this "realm of death," it also established god-like figures and a cosmic power of Death separate from the demons of the Burning Legion or the Void that the Undead draw their power from. Structurally, the Scourge as an army is a weird facsimile of the forces of Maldraxxus, though ironically, as gross and monstrous as Maldraxxus appears, it's not actually bent toward evil (well, at least not originally).

Shadowlands introduced a ton of new elements to the lore, and while I like the idea of making Death into this power with its own god-like figures in and of itself, certainly some of this could be handled more gracefully - especially as it was implied that the Jailer had secretly been behind nearly the entirety of Warcraft Lore (such as implying that his agents had even orchestrated Sargeras' fall from grace).

Indeed, the retcon of the Nathrezim being creatures of the Shadowlands, rather than the Fel, originally, was particularly jarring for a number of reasons. First off, their homeworld of Nathreza was already established, so then making them the creation of Sire Denathrius felt like it was giving a second origin of their names and natures. But it also makes it really weird that the Nathrezim were introduced as the Legion's handlers for the Scourge - if the Nathrezim were always secretly loyal to Death, wouldn't Mal'ganis and Detheroc and all those guys actually be in favor of the Lich King breaking away from the Legion? Sure, they're master infiltrators and can keep up a cover story, but this feels just so very weird and stinks to high heaven of retcon (which is 100% is).

The Shadowlands as an expansion had some very cool ideas, but there was so much messiness in incorporating it into the broader WoW lore that I'm almost inclined to think that Sylvanas' line about "the Shadowlands are not what they seem" could very easily be Blizzard giving itself license to retcon anything they presented in that expansion.

While I think the Jailer was a character who could have been super interesting but wound up being really dull (the reveal that he was the original Arbiter was a cool origin story, but his actual characterization and indeed just his physical design from a visual standpoint were... I didn't like them,) I do think the idea of "Domination Magic" coming out of the Shadowlands and forming the basis for the Scourge's power is an interesting one. And I do really like the idea that the Scourge's power is fundamentally different from the demonic power of the Legion.

But let's return to Azeroth:

At the start of Shadowlands, Sylvanas tears the Helm of Domination apart, effectively making the existence of a Lich King impossible. The Scourge is no longer held back by Bolvar, who is also left as effectively just a Death Knight now. We did spend the pre-launch event for Shadowlands in Icecrown fighting Scourge, but while the Scourge remains a general threat (even in Midnight, while questing with Arator we do have to fight some Scourge attacking Light's Hope) they really seem downgraded.

Now sure, this could just be a matter of emphasis. The Scourge were no less a danger during the events of Burning Crusade, but we were dealing with other issues, and so they didn't figure prominently in the story. Perhaps post-Shadowlands, the Scourge has become a bigger problem than it was under Bolvar, but we're just not seeing it as much because we've got dragons and void things to deal with.

One element we haven't really explored a lot is that there's a new helm: in Shadowlands, to counter the effect of the Jailer's Domination Magic (which incapacitates us at the end of the Torghast raid and forced Anduin into an Arthas-like role as pseduo-Death Knight,) the remnants of the Helm are used to forge the Crown of Wills, which acts as an almost diametric opposite to the Helm by magically reinforcing free will. Currently worn by Pelagos, who has become the new Arbiter (my main is a protection paladin, and had Pelagos as his soulbind, so I like to say that my character is canonically best friends with God,) it seems like its effects are tied more to the Shadowlands themselves, and likely embody a kind of reformation of the place where souls can decide where they want to go.

But does this have an effect on the Scourge? We really don't know. While the Forsaken have had free will for a while (though there were times from about Cataclysm through Shadowlands where it didn't actually seem that way - Night Elves raised by Sylvanas' Val'kyr during the War of Thorns pre-BFA event very suspiciously joined the Horde's efforts immediately after being raised - perhaps a hint of Sylvanas' alignment with the Jailer) what if that's starting to be a broader thing for the Scourge?

After all, it was Illidan's attempt to shatter the Frozen Throne that first allowed the Forsaken to break away. Surely the destruction of the Helm of Domination would lead to an even greater effect. But, of course, while the Forsaken did regain free will, plenty of them chose to do some nasty and evil shit.

While I assume The Last Titan is going to focus far more on the Ulduar/Storm Peaks/Titan stuff in Northrend, the fact that we're going back there means that we must have some interaction with the Scourge. I wouldn't be surprised if they play a major role in the middle raid tier of the expansion, similar to how we've gotten a kind of break from the Devouring Host while we deal with Ula'tek and her whole deal.