World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas says using Warcraft villains established outside the MMO in earlier expansions worked in the short term but left Blizzard with narrative challenges in the long term.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom, Hazzikostas points to the major villains established in real-time strategy games like Warcraft 3. Villains that have undergone extensive character development, and in some cases, ones that players have played through entire campaigns as or alongside. As such, by the time they appeared in World of Warcraft, they did so with a pre-existing history with fans.
