If you are someone who follows Blizzard’s work, you know if there is one thing they excel at: it is their animated trailers. Something about the presentation grabs your attention and keeps you focused from start to finish. From the various Overwatch trailers that highlight a hero to the various teasers in Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard would give Pixar a good challenge if they wanted to go to the animated movies. You probably have that one trailer you saw that made you say to yourself, “Yeah. I want that game,” and got it reserved right away.
Continuing from the “Five Untold Stories of Overwatch” article, let’s take a closer look at Blizzard itself. We will look at Overwatch closer too, but this will focus on all of Blizzard’s recent titles. For as wonderful as Blizzard’s library is, a thought comes to mind about their current state. If we look at the way stories are in their games nowadays, the storytelling has suffered quite a bit lately. While you would expect there to be a split on this topic, gamers are quite unanimous that the quality wasn’t there compared to back in the day. Is it that we are favoring the old games over the new ones? Or is it be that Blizzard’s storytelling has suffered in quality over time? Also, as a fair forewarning, some spoilers ahead.
Diablo: Making Angels more “Mortal”
So you’re not human, but you’re a “Mortal Angel.” Am I getting this right Tyrael?
For gamers who grew up on the PC gaming, Diablo holds a special place in their heart. The first game did an amazing job to get you immersed in the game. In the town of Tristram, you find yourself tasked to go into the depths and seek Diablo and to end his reign of terror. While the story didn’t pop up too much, it came out as you went deeper into the catacombs and with the townsfolk. They would tell you stories of the evil creatures like the Butcher and the terrors that lied below their feet. Even the second game did a great job to let characters express their thoughts while they explored the world to stop Diablo and the Prime Evils.
*Throws up arms in a confused state*
When you consider popular video games series set in space, chances are that StarCraft comes to mind. It has been 20 years since the release of the original and since that time, StarCraft is just about the standard in gaming in terms of Real-Time Strategy. While the gameplay was excellent, you can say there was a nice balance of telling the stories between the three races; each episode showcasing the struggle between the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
With the amount of work put into getting StarCraft 2 up and going, Blizzard took a big leap to having three separate stories in three games rather than three stories in one. Brood Wars might not have been much better, but there were some that questioned how the story developed over three stories. It went from “Raynor’s mission to return Kerrigan to normal” followed shortly by Kerrigan “going back to how she was before.” It’s explained in the game but with the drama behind the original StarCraft, fans felt like the sequel tied things up too fast; like making Kerrigan off as Space Jesus the entire time.
Overwatch: Telling Stories of the Past, but What of the Future?
Much like Brigitte’s spray, how many more stories of the past can we listen to?
As we near the two-year anniversary, Overwatch has found many ways to grab everyone’s attention. Through the spectacular gameplay and the unique characters roster, the game has established itself as a strong staple of this generation. The biggest drive to the game is the lore itself and the stories told of the heroes. If you follow the story, you likely follow a few channels on YouTube that focuses on the lore, characters, and other small tidbits found in-game, voice lines, or cinematics. And while the cinematics are great and the lore building is engaging, there is one problem that many thinks of with Overwatch‘s overall story, it isn’t progressing as it is memorizing.
Where Overwatch’s story stands, the opening cinematic with Winston is as close to the story we’ve got to for almost two years. We got small additions such as Doomfist’s escape, Sombra’s blackmailing, and Brigitte joining the fight, but not much else from there. If we look at all the cinematic trailers we’ve had, almost all of them focus on the character before or just after Winston send out the recall, but nothing that reflects current events. You could say that the matches that play out in the 6v6 help, but we have seen no progression as of late, or anything that would shake things up since launch. We’ll see what Overwatch does. Perhaps now would be the best time if any to move the story forward although chances are we’ll still get plenty more back stories before then.
Where It All Began: Telling the Story of the World Of Warcraft
Could WoW be reaching a certain climatic conclusion?
While you could pick from any of the games I listed up top, many consider the rise of a certain MMORPG as the root of it all. After WarCraft 3 wrapped up and split the world in half, turning the world of WarCraft into a massive RPG was something special. With the entire world of Azeroth to explore and two separate factions of the Alliance and the Horde, plays could create their own stories and legends. Start off as just another individual that can rise and be their own unique and special hero.
For as grand and expansive as World of Warcraft is, it too could run into its fair share of poor storytelling. With each new expansion, some new threat rises, throwing the world further into chaos. It’s difficult to say what’s the better way for how MMOs should handle the story. Do you allow players to write their own stories? or do you guide them down a path and have the story develop for them? WoW haven’t figured this one out; let alone any other MMOs out there. Still, when you allow players to be the storytellers, it’s difficult to follow unless if you were a player and had your own stories to share. You can only save the world so many times before it becomes a repetitive chore.
Conclusion: Stay A While and Listen!
Does Blizzard no longer know how to do storytelling anymore? Far from it. Each game provides their own unique sets of challenges and plot holes, but not that the stories have become too haphazard. There is a reason fans keep coming back to the latest expansion of World of Warcraft. Why we keep coming back to see the next hero in OverWatch. And how we fall in love with Starcraft and Diablo when a new game comes out after many years. Perhaps the decade-long gap hurt the development, but it wasn’t like the games received a poor reception upon release (most of them anyway). It can be difficult to meet the expectations set by stories we grew up with.
Oh, Deckard Cain. We’re going to miss you.
If anything else, you could say the focus itself has not been on the story as much as it is to create a memorable experience in-game. As stated earlier, not all games by Blizzard are bad. Far from it. It is, however, something that fans have taken notice to and question why the story is being told in such ways. World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is about to engage in a full-blown war between two factions. Meanwhile, fans are eager to see what heroes will join Overwatch to further expand the story and offer new kinds of gameplay. Even Heroes of the Storm is getting plans for lore with a discussion at Pax East next month. Fans of Blizzard wait with anticipation to see what will happen next, and we will follow them every step of the way.
So What Do You Think?
Has Blizzard’s storytelling been lacking as of late? What do you think Blizzard needs to do to fix this? Does it even need fixing? Leave a comment down below and be sure to follow us here at Culture of Gaming for more editorials following Blizzard and other gaming companies and their approach to storytelling.
