World of Warcraft creative director apparently wishes Blizzard "hadn't called it 'Warcraft,'" and that hasn't gone down well

Some names are iconic. Warhammer. Final Fantasy. World of Warcraft. Every now and then we see a new ‘WoW killer’ with snazzy graphics, promises of innovation, and more cosmetics than you can count, but most just come and go without leaving a mark or ever threatening to topple the king. Ashes of Creation, New World, and even the likes of Final Fantasy 14 or Guild Wars 2 all somehow feel a bit minor in the face of Blizzard’s classic MMO. But executive creative director Chris Metzen apparently regrets calling the franchise ‘Warcraft,’ and that statement has gone down about as well as you’d think.

In an interview with The Game Business, Warcraft vice president Holly Longdale and game director Ion Hazzikostas reflect on World of Warcraft’s journey. The future looks bright: Midnight (the game’s latest expansion) is lurking on the horizon, and then The Last Titan after that.

Blizzard has also upped the pace of its DLC releases. The War Within released in 2024, Midnight arrives in March, and The Last Titan is slated to launch before 2030. That’s three expansions in just six years: a record for the company, and a welcome reprieve from the six-month dry spells we’ve grown accustomed to.

But Longdale takes a moment to consider where the game came from. Her Blizzard career began on WoW Classic back in 2020, so she’s seen the game come full circle. She describes the IP as having been “underutilized,” meaning that it has to “evolve.”

“It’s a fantastic IP. In my humble opinion, it’s been underutilized and I just want to bring it to as many people as possible,” she tells The Game Business. “And that means evolving what Warcraft means, what it is, and where it’s going.

“We want it to be approachable,” she continues, recalling that “Chris Metzen is sometimes like, ‘I wish we hadn’t called it Warcraft. It sounds intimidating.’ But I’m like, nobody really thinks that about Warhammer. It’s an understood name.”

She notes that the team’s main endeavor is to make WoW an actual world, where people use it to hang out, make friends, celebrate birthdays, and so on. She describes this as a “third space,” which I feel somewhat equates to Final Fantasy 14’s heavy focus on socializing and community. FF14 has an entire website dedicated to in-game marriage ceremonies, after all, and it seems like Blizzard wants to broaden WoW out to be more of a ‘lifestyle’ than ‘let’s do a raid and call it a day’.

While she highlights that “we’re never going to stop doing the things people love,” the Metzen comment (seen at ~19:03 in the video) has sparked some backlash. While Metzen’s comment feels somewhat playful, Warcraft at its core is a story of war, be it the initial loose premise of Orcs versus Humans, or the scope of Battle for Azeroth. War is very much at the heart of Warcraft, as is factional aggression.

“I haven’t seen one positive reaction to this interview. Not one,” iconic Warcraft YouTuber Michael ‘Bellular’ Bell writes on X. “Don’t torch the Warcraft you have chasing a version that only exists as a 20 year plan to capture ‘as many people as possible.’ That’s how you lose it all.”

A similar discussion has broken out on the WoW forums, with the initial post reading, “Yeah the only saving of our beloved IP is the Classic+ team… the Retail team, writers and directors are beyond cooked.” While one response does highlight that it makes sense in the context of the overarching conversation (“A name like ‘Warcraft’ is more limiting than ‘Super Mario Bros'”), the general consensus seems to be that ‘Warcraft’ is at the core of ‘WoW.’

And I think you can keep that essence without the game being too off-putting. Final Fantasy 14 has a diverse, dedicated community that use it as both a game experience and a hangout despite it being a long-running JRPG franchise that people either really love or don’t engage with much at all. As we move into a new era of WoW, I hope that identity doesn’t get left behind: some of the best stories are born from conflict.