World Of Warcraft Lore

If you've played World of Warcraft you've heard the name Arathi before BlizzCon 2023 blew the doors open with big announcements about three expansions, a whole new story wrapping up the past several years worth of plot threads, and of course Earthen.

The first time we encountered Il'gynoth was in the Emerald Nightmare raid, it had some interesting prophetic whispers for players -- whispers that were immediately dissected for clues about future plans for the game.

Heartstone has done some fun things with Warcraft lore over the years -- evil supervillains banding together, a big Draconic dust-up, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan -- and none of it is in World of Warcraft, which I think is a crying shame.

The takeaway I have from playing World of Warcraft and experiencing its story over the past decade -- from Cataclysm to Mists and then the Warlords/Legion/Battle for Azeroth years, and finally exploring the content of Shadowlands -- is that in many ways WoW feels to me much like a season of a streamed TV series like The Witcher or The Boys, not in terms of the story it is telling, but in how that story is told.

WoW Lore TLDR offers a minimalist overview for the lore of World of Warcraft so that you can see the story at a glance and cover the important concepts.

Since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans back in 1994, Blizzard has been building a massive universe around the world of Azeroth.

Since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans back in 1994, Blizzard has been building a massive universe around the world of Azeroth.

The Warcraft universe and its lore is pretty vast and expansive.

As we gear up for the Warcraft movie — there are just a few short weeks to go for American audiences, and even less time for international viewers — gamers are still wondering just how it fits into the RTS and MMO story we already know.

The title of this column might seem a little odd to some.