This week at Gamescom, Blizzard announced their new expansion to World of Warcraft, entitled Legion. While some fans theorized some of the pieces of the new story, thanks to careful attention paid to the current story in Warlords of Draenor and/or speculating on any number of alleged leaks of information and trademark acquisitions, no one really got it right. I for one am actually pleased that Blizzard was able to keep things under proper wraps because while a South Seas pirate-themed adventure sounds like fun, the sounds of jaws dropping when they revealed the real details about the expansion was even better. Nothing’s worse for a big reveal than the majority of your audience using their bored tone of voice to say, “Yes, we already know about that”.

Naturally, gaming press and fansites are poring over every single detail coming out of Gamescom, with the happily-trolling Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas doing things from teasing new looks for the feral druids’ cat forms to going over the basics of the PvP overhaul. Gameplay is going to be changing as a natural consequence to players getting their hands on things and the developers realizing that something that looked good on paper doesn’t quite work in a live situation (Garrisons, I’m looking at you). However, as a writer I’m far more drawn to a game’s story than its gameplay. For example, as much as I love LotRO, I probably wouldn’t necessarily play it if it wasn’t Lord of the Rings. The general feel of gameplay is very similar to WoW or EQ2 or any number of fantasy MMOs, so I’m not really missing anything there except the lore if I play any of those games instead.

So where is Blizzard taking us in Legion? Well, the big bad of the Warcraft universe is the corrupted Titan Sargeras. He’s been in lore since Warcraft III, but the lore placed him retroactively as the true instigator of all shenanigans in the previous Warcraft entries. Medivh the Betrayer of the original game? Sargeras possessing him. Sure, there are Old Gods we get to fight and defeat in Wrath of the Lich King, but the root of all evil is the Dark Titan. Azeroth has been the only world known to have ever stood up to his Burning Legion and survived (twice!), so it’s not surprising that his minions are going to try yet again in order to get a perfect score in the game known as Demolishing the Universe.

This expansion’s story promises to pick up where Warlords of Draenor left off, with Draenor saved, and Gul’dan alive and trying to continue currying favor with the Legion. The teaser trailer has Archmage Khadgar flying in crow form (an ability I heartily wish they’d give to player mages) to visit Varian and Anduin Wrynn in Stormwind to warn them that the Legion is coming back. The presentation was heavily Alliance-favored, which is a big change from Warlords being primarily Horde-favored. Naturally, Horde players are already asking why we didn’t get to see Khadgar visiting Warchief Vol’jin and warning him too, because it sounds like we can use all the help we can get to take on the Legion again. From a storytelling perspective in terms of how much time you have for a teaser trailer, having both would have been clunky, so a streamlined narrative is best. Hopefully this question will be answered when we get to the pre-launch events similar to the attack from the reddened Dark Portal before Warlords launched.

The expansion’s story is hugely based on the lore of Warcraft III, which is the game that finally brought the Warcraft universe onto a similar level of scope that other elder franchises have had, such as Lord of the Rings. For many players, the Warcraft universe began there. We now know that this is going to be a story that had its foundations over 10,000 years ago. And much like Tolkien’s stories, there are still a number of beings who are alive now on Azeroth who were there back then. This is a living history for us, and that makes it more intriguing. By adding to it with choice pieces of the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King stories and characters, Blizzard really seems to be wanting to bring back players who loved getting to be a vrykul or wondered where the val’kyr had come from before Arthas had corrupted them, and of course people are already reserving demonic-flavored names for their future Demon Hunters.

However, we know it won’t be a happy story. From tidbits during the live presentation when mentioning how players will acquire various artifact weapons such as the Ashbringer or Doomhammer, well-loved characters will die or lose hope. Some such as Yrel will remain on Draenor because their purpose has been fulfilled, much like Taran Zhu and Lorewalker Cho remain fixtures in Pandaria. Still, other fan favorites will be returning. Illidan will be released from his imprisonment (and yes, we’re not prepared). Teased at BlizzCon 2013 during the Warlords reveal, Alleria Windrunner and Turalyon are coming back as well.

There is plenty to be curious about. We know they’re already working on the expansion beyond this one, which makes me wonder what you do after you’ve defeated the biggest evil your universe has known. It would seem foolhardy for Blizzard to paint themselves into that particular corner. Star Wars: the Old Republic answered that question by inventing yet another Emperor to deal with. Of course, we don’t know yet if Sargeras will be utterly defeated. That’s the nature of evil in our fiction: there still has to be some kind of conflict to drive the story. Or to quote one of my favorite movies, “Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.” Tolkien knew this when he wrote of the Last Alliance between Elves and Men when Isildur ignored Elrond. Isildur didn’t chuck the One Ring into the fire after cutting it off of Sauron’s hand over three thousand years ago, thus setting up the primary conflict of Lord of the Rings.

Still, we’re going to see a culture shift due to gameplay mechanics, and I’m not entirely sure it’s a good idea. That’s not simply because it’s very likely my favorite NPC is going to kick a rather large bucket before his weapon becomes one of the Artifacts. Previously, our characters were simply talented heroes, then they became commanders and generals, and now they’re going to be champions. We’re going to wield formerly unique and unobtainable weapons important to the lore, which means we will be taking the places of the A-list NPCs who previously wielded them. However, that sort of leads to a single-player mentality in many cases, despite reassurances of a number of raids and other group activities. Having a 20-person raid with three enhancement shaman wielding the Doomhammer is going to feel very weird at first. Eventually, we’ll get used to it, much like players of the ARPG Marvel Heroes have the same roster of heroes to play. There, you’ll see fourteen Wolverines out there in the same battle, some with disparate costumes on, some specced a bit differently, but the same overall character.

Whereas the story of Warlords of Draenor was most personal to orcs and then draenei, it seems as if Legion will be the elf-expansion, although tauren will also get a look-in. Yes, I want moose-antlers on my tauren too. With the new demon hunter class only being available to night elves and blood elves and no high elves available to play despite the return of Alleria Windrunner (a fact that makes my guildmistress’ daughter very cross), players will be steeped in the lore and homes of a people who have lived for thousands of years. This has to be more personal to vanilla players, when the only elves you could create were night elves. Since we’ll see the original home of druidism, druids too will get more to work with, so this might be the most intense for night elf druids. True fact: my first WoW character was a night elf druid.

It wouldn’t be a new Warcraft launch without some folks questioning Blizzard’s writers with respect to the big diversity debate. Yrel was touted as the first in a paradigm shift where female characters would get more airtime, but some are upset she’s being left behind on Draenor. As much as I prefer a naturally diverse cast and Yrel is an awesome character, it doesn’t make story sense for her to come with us back to present-day Azeroth despite her offer of help. If Velen had not become one with the Light and given her the Matrix of Leadership… err, that forehead-sigil… then she wouldn’t be in charge of her people. By staying behind, she’s being a mature and responsible adult.

Jaina, on the other hand, apparently quits the Kirin Tor and leaves Dalaran in a huff. In the words of Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi in the Gamescom livestream, she’s ‘pissed off’. Since the new leader of the Kirin Tor (the much more stable Khadgar) is off warning people about the Legion and apparently transporting Dalaran to the Broken Isles, we don’t know yet why she left and fans are wondering if she’ll turn up as a villain this time around. If you’ve read Tides of War, the Jaina-focused novel by arguably the best Warcraft novelist Christie Golden, then you’ll get a lot more insight into why she changed from the studious mage who could broker peace and be friends with Thrall into someone who would be willing to urge Varian Wrynn to attack the Horde in cold blood during the Siege of Orgrimmar. If all you know is the story that’s directly in the game, then all you’ll see is someone who goes into rage-monster mode at the drop of a hat after her city is nuked by the Horde, and it really does the character an injustice.

The one female character who might see the most disservice done to her is Aggra, Thrall’s mate and mother of his son Durak. In the livestream, Alex Afrasiabi said that one of the Artifact weapons would be recovered by players after its previous owner had ‘lost hope’, with the strong implication that he was talking about Thrall. Again, if you’ve read the novels, you know how frequently Thrall loves to fall into self-doubt mode. He often recovers thanks to insight from the sharp-tongued Aggra, who isn’t having any of that and will bluntly tell him when he’s wrong, an agency that no one else in the Warcraft universe has. So, if they fridge her, that would be a perfect excuse to have Thrall shove the Doomhammer into someone else’s hands and simply turn his back on the world. Frankly, it would be a terrible outcome for either character, and I sincerely hope it never comes to pass.

On the other hand, I’m hopeful that the use of Dalaran and the return of Alleria Windrunner will lead to story involving all three Windrunner sisters. While Vereesa and Sylvanas had some epic story in Christie Golden’s War Crimes (no spoilers!), there are hints of the greater importance of Alleria and Sylvanas, due to one of the hunter bows possibly belonged to Sylvanas and Alleria is the new hunter hero in Hearthstone. While Vereesa could easily be left behind to care for her and Rhonin’s kids – a perfectly legitimate outcome – it’s possible that all three of them will have something meaty to do in this expansion and that it won’t feel forced. Despite the heavy resonance with night elves as well, we haven’t yet seen how Tyrande Whisperwind will factor into the story, and she’s rarely been given agency. She spent 10,000 years holding down the fort for Malfurion, keeping that slimy Fandral Staghelm from taking over the night elves, and gets promptly shuffled into second banana roles as soon as she wakes up Malfurion from the Emerald Dream. Her job as prosecutor in Garrosh Hellscream’s trial was something of a bloodthirsty turn for her.

For many players, Warcraft is the game they come back to for a couple of months at a time after an expansion. By pulling out the nostalgia for Warcraft III, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, we can see how Blizzard hopes to bring people back for longer periods of time. By announcing earlier and hopefully launching beta sooner, with shorter dev cycles, they might have a good plan. Many are proclaiming doom and gloom due to recent subscriber numbers taking a tumble from less than a year ago, but it’s possible that if gameplay and story continue this epic journey, the players will stick around longer.

So what are you looking forward to the most from the expansion?