Cinematics
What was startling in 2004 was not the combat but the continuity: one world, no loading screens between zones, weather and a day-night cycle, and other real people walking through it. Then in 2010 Blizzard did something no company with twelve million paying customers should rationally do, it destroyed that world and rebuilt it, so the Azeroth of the first six years simply stopped existing. This facet is the place itself, and what was done to it.
Part of World of Warcraft
34 moments in this segment.
- - The Darkmoon Faire, filmed in 2006. Period footage of the Darkmoon Faire, the travelling carnival that appeared for a week each month and existed mostly as somewhere to stand around. It is a record of the kind of designed idleness vanilla built into the world.
- - The Scepter of the Shifting Sands. Period footage of the final step of the scepter quest chain, the months-long server-wide effort that had to be completed before the gates of Ahn'Qiraj could be opened. It is the clearest surviving example of vanilla WoW asking an entire realm, not a party, to do something. Filmed years before its 2011 upload.
- - Patch 2.1: the Black Temple. The content patch that added the Black Temple and Illidan as its final boss, the raid that defined the first expansion and that most subscribers never saw the inside of.
- - The Wrathgate. The in-game cinematic that changed what players expected from questing. A scripted betrayal plays out in the world itself rather than in a cutscene you watch from outside, and both factions lose. It is still the scene people cite when defending WoW as storytelling.
- - Fall of the Lich King, the ending cinematic. The cinematic that plays after Arthas dies at the top of Icecrown Citadel, capturing the end of the story arc that had run since Warcraft III. Patch 3.3.2 opened the final wing shortly before this was captured. The existing archive has the kill; this is what the kill was for.
- - Siege of Orgrimmar. The patch that ended Mists of Pandaria by having the Horde tear down its own leader, the faction, not the Alliance, removing Garrosh Hellscream.
- - Lords of War: Grommash. A short animated series Blizzard released between expansions, telling the backstory of orc warlords in a hand-drawn style unlike anything else the game produced.
- - Talador, the finale. An in-game story cinematic from Warlords of Draenor, shown as players finish the Talador zone campaign. It is one of the first expansions where Blizzard put rendered scenes inside the questing flow rather than saving them for the login screen. Dated to the expansion's 2014 release rather than the pre-release upload.
- - Warlords of Draenor: the in-game cinematics. The full run of in-engine cutscenes Blizzard cut into Warlords of Draenor, captured and collected by a player. These short scenes were the expansion's storytelling method, not the pre-rendered trailer but the smaller, cheaper cinematics the game showed you mid-quest. Dated to the expansion's release rather than the upload, which preceded launch by weeks from beta.
- - Harbingers: Gul'dan. The first of the three Harbingers animated shorts released in the run-up to Legion, telling the origin of Gul'dan in ink-wash animation. Alongside Warbringers it is the clearest example of Blizzard building an animation studio around the game's marketing calendar.
- - Harbingers: Khadgar. An animated short released in the run-up to Legion, following the archmage Khadgar as the Burning Legion returns to Azeroth. The Harbingers trilogy was Blizzard's pre-launch storytelling experiment, seeding an expansion through character shorts rather than one cinematic. Dated to Blizzard's release, a month before the 30 August 2016 Legion launch.
- - Harbingers: Illidan. One of the three animated shorts Blizzard released ahead of Legion, following an Illidari recruit into Illidan's demon hunters. The Harbingers films were the studio's move away from single pre-rendered launch trailers toward serialised animation, a form it kept for Warbringers and Afterlives. Dated to its release, which is also its upload.
- - The Broken Shore, from the Alliance side. The in-engine cinematic that opens Legion, showing the assault on the Broken Shore as the Alliance experienced it. Blizzard shipped two versions of the same battle, one per faction, so that the same defeat read differently depending on who you played. Uploaded the week Legion's pre-patch went live.
- - Patch 7.2: the Tomb of Sargeras. A mid-expansion patch trailer from Legion, the expansion that reset expectations for how much content a patch should contain.
- - Old Soldier. Blizzard's pre-launch short for Battle for Azeroth, in which Varok Saurfang is broken by a war he no longer believes in. It is the moment the studio's cinematics team stopped animating spectacle and started animating regret, and it was released weeks ahead of the expansion itself. One of the few WoW films that works with no knowledge of the game.
- - Old Soldier: the Saurfang cinematic. The short Blizzard cinematic in which Varok Saurfang, the Horde's oldest surviving warrior, is confronted by the war his faction is about to start. Widely regarded as the best-written piece of animation Blizzard made for the game, and the emotional argument for the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Kept as an artifact distinct from the expansion's announcement cinematic.
- - Warbringers: Jaina. An animated short released ahead of Battle for Azeroth, following Jaina Proudmoore's return to Kul Tiras. The Warbringers series marked the point where Blizzard's between-expansion storytelling became a standalone animation programme rather than a trailer.
- - Warbringers: Sylvanas. The animated short Blizzard released before Battle for Azeroth showing Sylvanas Windrunner at Teldrassil, the scene that set off years of argument about the character and the faction war. Warbringers was the studio at its most confident as a film-maker. Released on its upload date.
- - The Return of Hope: Kul Tiras. An in-game cinematic from Battle for Azeroth in which Jaina Proudmoore reclaims her family's fleet and her drowned home. Released by Blizzard in the weeks after the expansion went live. Included as one of the rare pieces of Azeroth the archive can actually show a viewer.
- - Warbringers: Azshara. One of the three animated Warbringers shorts Blizzard released around the Battle for Azeroth launch, telling how the night elf queen Azshara struck her bargain in the deeps. The Warbringers series was Blizzard's most ambitious animation outside the expansion cinematics themselves. Dated to Blizzard's release, days after the 14 August 2018 expansion launch.
- - Lost Honor. Blizzard's Battle for Azeroth cinematic in which the imprisoned orc Varok Saurfang is confronted by King Anduin Wrynn. Released at BlizzCon 2018, it opened the Saurfang arc that carried the expansion's faction war to its end. One of the studio's rendered short films, and part of the only visual record of Azeroth this archive can carry.
- - Safe Haven. The Battle for Azeroth story cinematic in which Varok Saurfang meets Thrall, the turning point of the expansion's Horde storyline. It was released as a standalone film mid-patch, a sign of how far Blizzard's cinematic cadence had drifted from the once-per-expansion trailer. Released on its upload date.
- - Reckoning. The Battle for Azeroth cinematic in which the faction war ends at the gates of Orgrimmar, with Alliance soldiers standing alongside Saurfang's rebels against Sylvanas. Released with patch 8.2.5, it closed the storyline opened by Lost Honor a year earlier. Blizzard's rendered shorts are the archive's only sustained view of Azeroth.
- - Saurfang's Mak'gora. Blizzard's cut of the Varok Saurfang storyline through Battle for Azeroth, ending in his duel with Sylvanas outside Orgrimmar. It is the clearest late example of WoW telling a story about one character across a whole expansion, and the duel itself was among the most-discussed cinematics the game ever shipped. Published by Blizzard as the expansion's war chapter closed.
- - Shadowlands Afterlives: Bastion. The Bastion instalment of the Afterlives shorts, in which Uther the Lightbringer arrives in the afterlife and the Paragon Devos discovers what a mortal wound really costs. Released ahead of the Shadowlands launch as the fullest animated treatment of a character players had known since 2004. Dated to Blizzard's release, months before the 23 November 2020 expansion.
- - Afterlives: Maldraxxus. One of the four animated shorts Blizzard released ahead of Shadowlands, this one giving Draka an afterlife and a second death. The Afterlives series was the first time WoW's pre-expansion storytelling ran as episodic animation on YouTube rather than a single cinematic.
- - Afterlives: Ardenweald. One of the four animated Afterlives shorts Blizzard released before Shadowlands, introducing Ardenweald and its dying grove. By 2020 the pre-expansion short film had become a routine part of the release calendar, made to be watched on YouTube rather than in the client. Released on its upload date.
- - Dragonflight Legacies, chapter one. The first episode of Legacies, an animated series Blizzard released in the run-up to Dragonflight rather than a single launch cinematic. Nozdormu, the bronze dragon Aspect, guides a warrior with broken memories. It marks the point where the game's marketing became serialised storytelling.
- - The Cataclysm cinematic, remastered for Classic. Blizzard re-released the 2010 Deathwing cinematic in 4K to announce Cataclysm Classic, arriving 20 May 2024. The same footage that once announced the destruction of the old world was repurposed fourteen years later to sell its restaging as nostalgia. Dated to the remaster's release, not the 2010 original, which is a separate scene.
- - Shadow and Fury. The War Within trailer introducing Xal'atath, the Harbinger of the Void, as the expansion's antagonist, released three days before beta access opened. It doubled as marketing for the $89.99 Epic Edition, which sold three days of early access. Blizzard's cinematic output is the closest thing this archive has to a picture of the game itself.
- - What the Chinese client had to change. A comparison of model differences in the Chinese client. Skeletons were given flesh, corpses became tidy graves and undead were recoloured, to satisfy regulators who twice rejected Wrath of the Lich King for its imagery.
- - Threads of Destiny. An animated short released three weeks before The War Within launched on 26 August 2024, following the Nerubian queen Ansurek. By this point Blizzard was releasing pre-launch animation as a series rather than a single cinematic, which is how the expansion story is now told outside the game.
- - Undermine launch trailer. Blizzard's trailer for patch 11.1, which opened the goblin city of Undermine as a zone. It is a late-period example of what the expansion trailer had become by 2025: a short, stylised piece selling a single patch rather than a whole expansion. Released the day the patch went live.
- - Sylvanas returns: the March on Quel'Danas finale. The in-game finale cinematic for the March on Quel'Danas raid in Midnight, in which Sylvanas Windrunner returns and is reunited with Vereesa and Arator. Blizzard's story cinematics are the only view of Azeroth this archive can carry, and this is the payoff of the expansion's opening arc.
