World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade – Revisiting the Outrageous Lore

When Blizzard originally released the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, it’s safe to say I was somewhat annoyed by how they’ve massacred my boy, who, given the context, could be Illidan, Kael’thas, or the Warcraft lore in general. But mine isn’t the only school of thought, and as such, you might be interested in this PC Gamer article that looks back at the first WoW expansion with a certain degree of fondness.

Here’s a quick excerpt to get you started:

What players found on the other side wasn’t just a new world to explore, but one that spit on Warcraft’s roots as generic fantasy. Aliens, intergalactic spaceships and giant floating glyphs of sentient light—Burning Crusade laughed at people’s expectations for what Warcraft was supposed to be.

The Draenei were easily the most controversial, thanks largely to how drastically Blizzard retconned the lore to make them fit in. Originally players thought they were little more than another race living on Draenor, but they became intergalactic exiles who fled from Sargeras and his demon armies after they took over their homeworld thousands of years ago. And the only reason they were able to flee is thanks to a giant floating light god alien that lived in deep space that just so happened to have a spaceship for them to use.