As a longtime World of Warcraft player who's been following the game since the Burning Crusade days, I've got to say The War Within's character focus has been both refreshing and slightly disappointing. While I'm thrilled to see major Alliance figures finally getting meaningful development after what felt like ages, I can't help but feel for my Horde comrades who've been left somewhat in the lurch this time around.
What really struck me during my playthrough was how deeply personal these character journeys felt. Take Magni Bronzebeard, for instance - this character has been essentially frozen in development since Legion expansion launched back in 2016. That's over eight years of him just being "Azeroth's Speaker" without any real growth or change. In The War Within, we finally see him grappling with something beyond his connection to the world soul, and it's about time. I found myself actually caring about his internal struggles in a way I haven't with his character in years. Similarly, Anduin Wrynn's journey feels particularly poignant given everything he's been through since Shadowlands. His character arc tackles some genuinely heavy themes about leadership and trauma that I wasn't expecting from what initially seemed like just another expansion storyline.
The real standout for me, though, was Alleria Windrunner's storyline. Without giving away too many spoilers, her confrontation with the Void and what it means for her family, particularly her sister Sylvanas, provided some of the most compelling narrative moments I've experienced in WoW in recent memory. There's one particular scene where she's literally battling her own inner demons that had me completely captivated - the visual storytelling combined with the voice acting created this incredibly immersive moment that reminded me why I fell in love with Warcraft's storytelling in the first place.
Now, here's where I have to be honest about my disappointment. As someone who plays both factions but has always leaned slightly Horde in my preferences, the near-total absence of meaningful Horde representation in the main campaign stings. Thrall shows up briefly at the beginning - I'd estimate maybe 15-20 minutes of total screen time in the opening quests - before he's shipped off to "gather reinforcements" and essentially disappears until post-campaign content. Jaina Proudmoore gets similar treatment, appearing just long enough to remind us she exists before the story moves on. This creates this weird imbalance where approximately 85% of the main narrative focuses exclusively on Alliance characters, leaving Horde players feeling like secondary citizens in what's supposed to be a shared world.
I remember thinking during one particularly Alliance-heavy section, "Wait, where are the Horde leaders during all this? Don't they care that the world is potentially ending... again?" It creates this narrative dissonance that's hard to ignore, especially when previous expansions like Battle for Azeroth went to such great lengths to present balanced faction perspectives. The post-campaign content does help balance things out somewhat - there are some excellent quests involving Thrall and other Horde characters that I genuinely enjoyed - but by that point, the main story has already wrapped up, and it feels like playing catch-up rather than being part of the central narrative.
What's particularly frustrating is that there were so many opportunities to include Horde perspectives naturally. Without getting into specific spoilers, there are multiple points in the story where having a Horde representative present would have made perfect sense from both a narrative and logical standpoint. Instead, we get this strange situation where major world-threatening events are happening, and the Horde leadership is apparently just... elsewhere. It reminds me of similar issues back in Warlords of Draenor where certain characters felt conspicuously absent during crucial moments.
That being said, the character development we do get is genuinely well-executed. Each Alliance character's personal journey feels meaningful and earned, with clear progression from where they start to where they end up. The writing team has done an excellent job making these arcs feel personal and grounded despite the typically epic, world-ending stakes we expect from Warcraft. There's a sensitivity to dealing with characters' trauma and growth that shows real maturation in Blizzard's storytelling approach.
If I had to quantify my overall feelings, I'd say The War Within delivers about 70% of what I wanted from a narrative perspective. The character work we get is some of the best in recent memory, but the faction imbalance keeps it from being truly great. As someone who's invested nearly 16 years in this game and its characters, I'm hopeful that future updates and expansions will learn from this misstep and return to more balanced storytelling. After all, what makes Warcraft's world so compelling isn't just the Alliance or the Horde separately - it's the complex interplay between them that creates those memorable moments we talk about for years afterward.