Metzen's fingerprints are all over World of Warcraft: Midnight

At BlizzCon 2023 Chris Metzen returned to announce three World of Warcraft expansions: The War Within (2024), Midnight, and the forthcoming The Last Titan. Metzen, who retired in 2016 and came back in 2022 as a creative advisor before becoming executive creative director of the Warcraft universe, began at Blizzard as an artist and rose to become the studio’s storyteller-in-chief; he is also the voice of Thrall.

He remains the only member of Blizzard’s old guard to have returned to the company. Though he has largely stepped out of the public eye since that reveal, Metzen’s influence is unmistakable across the Worldsoul Saga and especially Midnight. The expansion centers on Azeroth’s old continents for the first time since 2010, reimagining a starting area and a raid dungeon as new adventuring zones and turning the previously deserted Silvermoon City into a major capital.

The tone is deliberately nostalgic and rooted in classic Warcraft geopolitics and themes.

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