World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas says the Worldsoul Saga is letting Blizzard give its villains some much-needed character: 'Dragons are really cool, but it's hard to grasp the motivations of a being the size of a city'

World of Warcraft is entering a new era. «Even though we're entering our 20th year, it's a time when new and returning players can get in on the ground floor of a story,» Ion Hazzikostas, game director for World of Warcraft, said in an interview at Gamescom with PC Gamer's Harvey Randall. The Worldsoul Saga, the three-expansion arc beginning with the imminent release of The War Within, is giving Blizzard a chance to sculpt WoW's story with a broader scope. And according to Hazzikostas, no character better embodies the new age of Warcraft storytelling than Xal'atath, WoW's latest archvillain.

High fantasy is a difficult sell without a captivating antagonist, and WoW's been struggling with its villains for years. «It's easy to underestimate—and we certainly did in the past—how much time it takes and the work that you have to do to build up a compelling new character within the trappings of an MMO,» Hazzikostas said. In WoW's early history, it benefited from what Hazzikostas called «a cheat sheet of being able to draw on Warcraft 3» for the big bad guys that formed the storytelling foundations for its first expansions. By the time players were hunting Illidan across the Outlands and storming the Lich King's citadel in Northrend, they had already experienced the stories of those characters firsthand.

«You played as Arthas. You personified him for a moment. You actually controlled him through the culling of Stratholme,» Hazzikostas said. «You felt a connection and an understanding through just a few hours of gameplay that's incredibly challenging to achieve in an MMO.»

Once it'd expended its Warcraft 3 antiheroes, however, Blizzard struggled to make compelling characters from the archenemies that followed. As World of Warcraft lined up ever-greater threats, it left itself little room for weaving them into engaging stories. «It's an issue going all the way back to Cataclysm, actually, with Deathwing as a villain,» Hazzikostas said. «Dragons are really cool, but it's hard