Here’s what you missed last time on World of Warcraft

Prior to the imminent release of The War Within, the World of Warcraft team released a short cinematic to catch you up on the lore of the last few expansions which led us up to here. The convention of recapping previous episodes has been slowly dying out as streaming replaces weekly release TV — no sense in reminding viewers what happened in the previous episodes when they’re binging a whole season in one go.

But since the current core Warcraft plot stretches all the way back to our artifact weapons in Legion, which was initially released 8 years ago, well, we got some recapping to do. Let’s roll the clip show.

If you’ve been playing along the whole time, it’s always interesting to see the things they mention — and the things they leave out, even if they were incredibly important during the arcs we played through. And yet, sometimes this convention provides a big clue as to what the upcoming plot for that episode will be, by emphasizing what you need to know for the upcoming installment, and neglecting to mention elements that may return, just later.

It’s interesting to think about, for instance, that Magni’s memey WOONZ get top billing, while Azshara’s whole arc doesn’t even merit a mention. Anduin’s abduction and actions during Shadowlands was heavily featured, but not seen were almost all the other racial leaders who were there too, including Thrall who shows up a bit later in the video. Despite being the main antagonist of an expansion in the meantime and issuing a dire warning of greater threats at his death, the Jailer wasn’t even mentioned — but Alleria’s mentor was mentioned by name, and also issued a dire warning of greater threats, though far more recently.

Before I wear out my tin foil hat, I’ll leave it to you to watch the video. Perhaps you’ll need my tin foil hat to defeat a more dire threat in the future, after all.