World of Warcraft: The War Within Interview - The Narrative, Dynamic Flight, And Arachnophobia Filters

Summary WoW's next expansion, The War Within, will raise the level cap and extend dynamic flight to more mounts.

The trilogy will introduce new characters, an allied race, and feature key lore elements.

An arachnophobia filter will be added to help players deal with spider creatures in the expansion.

World of Warcraft is kicking off its 20th year with the first of a three-part set of expansions, The War Within. As a sinister threat is rising from deep within Azeroth, The War Within will kick off the overarching Worldsoul Saga Trilogy with new areas, races, and problems for Azeroth. Multiple new game mechanic updates are taking place as well, including raising the level cap to 80, expanding dynamic flight to more flying mounts in WoW, and adding an arachnophobia filter to help everyone be able to enjoy the new spider-filled zones of Azj-Kahet and beyond.

As WoW: The War Within enters the first round of Alpha testing this week, players are getting their first glimpse of what to expect from part one of the trilogy. As an ancient Nerubian civilization has joined forces with the evil Xal'atath, who was first introduced in Legion, they are pushing forward to gain power without regard for others. Players will get to see many familiar characters from past expansions, as well as make new friends with a new allied race: the Earthen.

Related WoW: The War Within - Release Date, Zones, Dungeons, & Earthen Allied Race World of Warcraft’s expansion The War Within is the first part of three expansions coming to the game, here is everything to know and expect.

Screen Rant was invited to join in a press briefing and interview with World of Warcraft's Lead Visual Development Artist, Gabriel Gonzalez, and Senior Narrative Designer, Abigail Manuel. The two graciously answered questions regarding the upcoming trilogy of expansions to the game and The War Within expansion.

World Of Warcraft's Immense Amount Of Lore Will Factor Heavily Into The Trilogy

Each Expansion Will Be A Full Story That Will Create A Larger Narrative

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Screen Rant: With World of Warcraft having over two decades worth of story and lore, and everything that has gone into this whole universe, I know that this trilogy of expansions is looking back at the history of Azeroth and the Titans. How much from the previous expansions are we going to see pulled in?

Abigail Manuel: A lot of what we are pulling from the other expansions has a bit more to do with characters than it does with specific storylines. Of course, we are continuing a little bit of the Shadowlands and Anduin returning. But as far as some things, I would say that as far as proximal expansions, we are trying to pick up some storylines that we have talked about in the past with the World Soul and Titans, those are things that have existed in WoW lore for a very long time and those are the kinds of things that we are picking up now. And Magni, as the speaker, is coming back again now and those kinds of things. Not necessarily what we were doing in Dragonflight as far as story-wise, we are going to let that rest for a little bit, although that was, of course, about the Titans. So there are a lot of things that we are exploring that we have set up before. I would say that it is congruous with the expansions that we have had in the past and continues a lot of the character storylines, but I do think we are entering into a more epic story that will take a long time to tell and will be cohesive on its own.

When further asked if The War Within will have its own standalone narrative arc, or if it is just the first chapter of the trilogy without an end to it separate from the next two expansions, Abigail Manuel responded that it does have an end.

Abigail Manuel: This is a self-contained story. It does have an ending, and it has an ending that is satisfying but leads to stories that lead us further into this overarching story about the World Soul.

Related BlizzCon 2023 World of Warcraft Interview: Maria Hamilton & Kristy Moret Two formative leads on World of Warcraft's worldbuilding discuss their design principles, in advance of The War Within's release sometime next year.

Dynamic Flight Will Be Extended To As Many Mounts As Possible

Will Be Able To Be Toggled On Or Off

Screen Rant: How will the dynamic flight work being implemented across most mounts? I understand it will be able to be toggled on and off, but will this work for all mounts, or will it be certain mounts? Will it work in all areas?

Gabriel Gonzalez: The primary goal with dynamic flying is that we want to extend dynamic flying to as many mounts as possible. So we are starting off with the ones that make the most sense and that are a little bit easier for us to implement. The long-term goal is to have that fantasy of whichever mount you want to use has dynamic flying if it makes sense for that mount, so that’s what we are working towards. But we are probably going to start with a smaller section at first and then move from there.

Related WoW Roadmap 2024: Updates, New Season, & Expansion Schedule A look at everything that Blizzard has planned for World of Warcraft and WoW Classic in 2024, including expansions for both, and lots of new content.

An Arachnophobia Filter Will Be Provided For All Of WoW

The War Within Includes Many Spider Themes

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The major antagonists for The War Within are a race called the Nerubians, who are spider creatures. This presents a lot of hesitation for players who have a fear of spiders who may want to play the game but would not enjoy it because of this design choice. For this reason, World of Warcraft developers are adding a new arachnophobia filter to the game which will make spiders look like crabs instead.

Screen Rant: Regarding the arachnophobia filter, it is going to apply to a lot of the Nerubians to make them look more like crabs rather than spiders, but how will that work for boss battles? Are the bosses going to be designed to look like crabs as well? And will it apply retroactively to spiders elsewhere in World of Warcraft?

Gabriel Gonzalez: Yes, the arachnophobia filter should apply retroactively to all the other spider creatures from before The War Within. It’s a little more selective than just a blanket “anything that looks like a spider will be a crab”, it’s mostly focused around spider beasts. So we might not actually see entirely all spider-like creatures be turned into crabs. We want to be a little more precise about which ones will be crabs and which ones won't be. As far as the boss battles, I’m not so sure on that one, but I think what’s really behind the arachnophobia filter is we just want to make sure that every player, regardless of spider phobia or whatever, that they have a great experience playing World of Warcraft, and we just wanted to be cognizant of the fact that there are a lot of players with arachnophobia that would still want to enjoy this expansion that has a lot of those themes in it.

Abigail Manuel: Even with the filter on, if you walk up and some Hunter has a pet that’s a spider, it will now be a crab. So it does effect a lot of things.