"An ode to the Horde:" A ramble on what World of Warcraft's most iconic faction means to me — and a lament for its erasure

World of Warcraft's story delivery has been the subject of intense criticism over the years; some of it is in bad faith, but a lot of it is not.

I don't want to pretend that story writing is easy; I certainly couldn't do it. The best I can muster is poorly-penned blog posts on this tiny corner of the internet. Layer live ops, ongoing game development on top, nailing timelines, overlapping disciplines, and the rest of it — I would argue MMORPG storytelling is another level of hard.

In all fairness, it's a testament to World of Warcraft's writing overall that I and many others still passionately care about its direction and lament when things seem to be taking the wrong turn. Keeping millions invested over decades is an achievement few game dev teams can claim, and it's an accolade that deserves the highest praise.

That passion was hard won as a result of the combined work of hundreds of developers over years upon years. And it's only passion like this that can also breed such strong disappointment.

Those "wrong turns" I mentioned in WoW's story have come in increasing abundance in recent years, I feel, and the problem seems to be getting worse over time.

For me, it comes to a head in what I think will be remembered as one of World of Warcraft's biggest historical mistakes — the erasure of the game's iconic player factions.

Gameplay has always led story delivery in World of Warcraft, and that's fine. But Blizzard is also erasing decades of comfort, healing, and representation from the game with this strategy, and I hope they aren't taking that lightly.

An ode to the Horde, my faction; the band of misfits that didn't quite fit in, but found brother and sisterhood in a shared will to survive in an unforgiving world. Lok'tar ogar.

The Horde is more than just a silly video game faction to me, and many others

The Alliance and Horde comprise the two main factions in World of Warcraft. Like many games, factions serve as a bedrock for storytelling. Particularly in a universe that revolves around conflict, the very visible, very different player factions in World of Warcraft took on something of a life of their own.

It felt so seamless and "right" going from Warcraft 3 into World of Warcraft: the events of the original games very neatly and tidily coalesced around eight original nations, four on the Alliance and four on the Horde, representing different races, cultures, mythologies, backstories, and decades of lore building.

Worldbuilding has long been Warcraft's biggest strength. There are four main games, dozens of books, reference materials, and tens of thousands of hours worth of quest text in World of Warcraft. Of course, it's difficult to be fully perfect and consistent with all of that material, but few other collaborative multi-modal mega-projects have ever really reached this level this side of Warhammer itself.

For World of Warcraft, Blizzard actively fostered players to become engaged and immersed within their roleplaying experience. This was supposed to be an MMORPG after all. The original game gave each race their own starting zone, complete with lore building, story crafting, and mountains of flavor that simply no longer exist in the modern game. Every time we get a sliver of flavor in the modern retail World of Warcraft, it's celebrated so heavily — the community is actively telling Blizzard it wants more of this, but Blizzard repeatedly says no with its actions.

Indeed, nowadays, new players get one starting zone experience. You choose your race and faction, then you're dropped into a single-track storyline that does nothing to emphasize the backstory of your faction or nation. Increasingly, I feel like this is by design.

Blizzard has moved rapidly away from faction or nation-exclusive storytelling in recent years, and I can only presume it's to do with short-sighted cost-cutting.

Nothing sold the World of Warcraft experience more to me than the game's unique and divergent factions and races. I feel like leaning more into this would actually boost WoW's adoption, rather than hurt it. But for whatever reason, Blizzard is speed-running through decades of very bloody conflict to make player factions and nations super-friendly-happy-friends. If this is some kind of misguided attempt to make the game seem more friendly and appealing — it will fail.

World of Warcraft won on the basis of fantasy representation. Where people from all sorts of cultures, backgrounds, and socioeconomic situations could find some form of "safe" fantasy-inspired representation within the game's world. I liken it to sports fandom a bit, but speaking purely for myself and others who feel similarly — it was more than that.

As someone who grew up in what was recently literally called the "most deprived region" of the United Kingdom in the backyard of Black Sabbath's home city, I found myself drawn to the Forsaken. A playable zombie? I can't think of anything more awesome. I found myself drawn to the orcs; beastly-looking, bearded aliens that were particularly unpretty, you know, like me.

The dark, undead faction spawned during the closing chapters of Warcraft 3, out of the ruins of a blighted kingdom. My town, a former industrial-manufacturing center, is quite literally crumbling. The Forsaken climbing out of the blighted sludge and building a nation for themselves was inspiring to me, and their heavy-metal leanings seemed clearly intentional, given that the famous Warcraft Ozzy Osbourne commercials represented the global icon as a Forsaken too.

Today, it feels like Blizzard finds the "less pretty" races to be unmarketable. Indeed, the Forsaken, orcs, and other Horde core races have been almost completely left out of the narrative as a faction, save for a couple of token appearances here and there. And even those appearances smooth off all of the faction's rough edges, making them feel painfully bland in the process.

The Forsaken allied with the Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls into a faction of convenience, known as the Horde. Each of these races were outcasted and ostracized in some way. Underdogs. It's probably super lame and immature of me, but my inner child found the Horde story to be genuinely healing. The honorable orcs, noble tauren, cunning trolls, and twisted Forsaken; they forged together, despite all the odds, and became strong. The entirety of Midnight's Season 1 is about the Horde Blood Elves, yet they're not the Blood Elves I remember and celebrate ... they're softly-gently-cozycore elves armed with apologies, begging former enemies for help — the Blood Elves used to literally eat the god-like Naaru. That was badass. Now their iconic Sunwell font of power has been turned into a neutered swimming pool for ... some reason, I can only surmise is somehow ideological in intent.

What little "Horde" still exists is barely even present in the narrative. And, when they are, for sure, none of that survivor spirit remains. None of that defiance, rough edges cynically smoothened off, deprived of vigor and strength. There's no flavor, no immersion, and no representation. I want to be a darker character. And I'm sure many Alliance players want to feel like they have a real enemy, too.

It's all a shame either way, and honestly makes me feel less invested in the game overall.

Times change, and maybe I am lame

The Horde and the Alliance have been through a lot. They've fought cosmos-ending threats time and time again. It makes sense that their terrestrial disagreements would seem increasingly petty in the face of galactic-scale threats.

I don't think anyone is suggesting the Horde and Alliance go back to full-blown open warfare, and that has never been needed to achieve representation for the factions here. The voice of the player is nowhere to be found in the story. The representation is all but gone, and the sense of "RPG" in the "MMORPG" is waning quickly.

World of Warcraft: Midnight has an incredible endgame loop. I never in a million years saw myself doing rated PVP, but I'm sitting just shy of 2K rating thanks to the new solo rated queue. I love doing a quick Delve mini-dungeon to gear up alts, I love pushing high keys with my guild, and I love progressing towards the "Ahead of the Curve" raiding achievement every season. I've barely scratched the surface with the amazing Player Housing system.

Midnight also has some great, small storytelling moments, often hidden off the beaten path, where shimmers of that flavor I find myself missing remain. Astalor in Midnight has been a particularly awesome bit of old-school, darker Horde edginess, although I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard has us killing him off at some point, like many of the other cooler Horde characters over the years. And I can't praise Blizzard enough for what it pulled off at WoW: Midnight's Race to World First event.

It's probably lame to find myself genuinely emotionally attached to a video game faction. But World of Warcraft has always felt like more than a mere "game" to me. I've met lifelong friends as a result of this game. I found my partner of 13 years collaterally as a result of writing music about this game. I've spent 15,000+ hours immersed in the world, from age 18. It was there for me in the best and darkest times in my life, emphasis on darkest. So, I wouldn't be surprised if some of you are reading this, preparing a mocking comment, and that's fine and probably deserved. 🥲

I can only speak to my truth and passion, and I know I'm not alone in some of these sentiments. And I'm sure Alliance players have plenty of grievances too.

Even if you're not particularly invested in the game's factions, I think purely from a cold, marketing perspective, general flavor and immersion is a strong tool video games have to make people think about it even offline. There are books to read, speculative story discussions to be had, Horde and Alliance bumper stickers to be wielded, YouTube lore videos to be watched ... without investment in the world, "World" of Warcraft loses a ton of its uniqueness and strength.

And I'm by no means suggesting players are any less invested. I am certain that I'm a minority in my thinking here. Most people probably don't even read the quest text, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just think Blizzard could work a little harder to maintain the narrative direction it wants — it is their game after all — without glossing over aspects of the game many long-time, most passionate players enjoyed WoW for in the first place. I think the game would be stronger for it. I think the game would also be more marketable to more types of people for it, too. Maybe I'm wrong.

End of the day, I'm just a weird dude with a keyboard. I don't know why Blizzard is doing this. It feels intentional. I'm sure there are good reasons and intentions behind it, but it feels bad. Maybe that's lame, but WoW used to let me indulge and even celebrate my lameness vicariously by being an outcast video game zombie man.

It just feels like, after previously celebrating outcasts with the Horde, Blizzard itself has now effectively cast out my outcast. I lament that.

I know it's silly. But I want my Horde back.

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