Some ofWorld of Warcraft’sgreatest moments in history are found within its cinematics and cutscenes. From the original cinematic trailer for VanillaWoWto the in-game cutscenes featuring their player character helping to cook up a hot bowl of soup, these sequences secure themselves in the memory of fans by evoking powerful emotion, beautiful scenes, or awesome spectacle. Dragonflight has continued that trend, with some of the best cutscenes inWorld of Warcraft. With the Embers of Neltharion update nearly live, more cinematics and cutscenes are right around the corner.
Game Rant talked withWorld of Warcraft’scinematic narrative director Terran Gregory about the history of cinematics in the long-running MMORPG. A member of the cinematics team since VanillaWoW, Gregory has been a part of nearly every videoWorld of Warcrafthas released. He shared insight into some of the most important moments inWorld of Warcraft’scinematic journey - including a handful of cutscenes that changed the game - and explained waysDragonflight learned lessons from the pastto breathe life into characters like Alexstrasza, Wrathion, and the Primal Incarnates.The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: The Primal Incarnates have been a hit with fans of Dragonflight thus far. How was it like breathing life into these characters, especially considering most of what we’ve seen of Iridikron, Vyranoth, and Fyrakk has been in cinematics?
Gregory:The Primal Incarnates! Working with the Primal Incarnates has been a joy. As we’ve beenseeing inWorld of Warcraft: Dragonflight, Raszageth was our introduction as the single freed survivor of this mysterious force that was being talked about in hushed tones by the Aspects. Alexstrasza mentioning, “Oh yeah, she was the youngest of the Primal Incarnates, and they did terrible things.” It built this mystery for us with the anticipation that we would see them. And as we’ve seen in the subsequent patches – 10.0.7, 10.1 – they’re on the move, they’re doing things. We’re learning about their attitudes and their intentions.
It’s been absolutely wonderful to see how the new content cadence we’re doing with our patches is permitting us to have more of an episodic story nature. Dolling these things out, building anticipation, and showing things from the perspective of the Primal Incarnates, seeing what they’re up to.
That’s something we didn’t see a whole lot in previous expansions. Some stand-out moments were like Taran Zhu vs. Garrosh in 5.4 where we saw them fight, or7.2 where Kil’jaeden spoke with Sargerasover the Fel communication device. Looking back on those, we saw there was tremendous value in spending more time with our antagonists to get in their head, and that’s been a guiding principle in utilizing the cinematics to introduce these new threats, to learn more about them, see the dynamics between them in their native spaces, and build this mystery moving forward of “Oh, what are they up to? What are they all about?”
Q: Cutscenes and cinematics are some of the only places fans get to see what bad guys like the Primal Incarnates are up to outside boss fights and encounters. Is it a lot of pressure to have that responsibility, or do you revel in the opportunity to show off these aspects of the antagonists?
Gregory: A little column A, a little column B. It’s always exhilarating to work onWorld of Warcraft, but it is a large responsibility with such a broad, sweeping story over the many years we’ve created this experience for the player base. There are high expectations from a lot of passionate and invested people. So, we want to always do our best. I think particularly in the case of Dragonflight and the Incarnates in particular, we’re always working to evolve, tolearn lessons of how to pushWorld of Warcraftin the future, to embellish our storytelling and create a compelling experience for our players. The Incarnates were a result of many lessons learned, and aspirations of trying to pushWorld of Warcraftto be exhilarating and exciting.
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From their design to the way they express themselves, it was such a wonderful creative collaboration with our narrative crew, art team, and directors. We asked ourselves questions like “How would the Incarnates express themselves if they were to have this visage form?” We thought about the nature ofwhat visage forms represented to the original Aspects- their desire to communicate and collaborate with the mortal races. As we understand the Incarnates, that is not their desire. It is not their desire to fit in, it is not their desire to put the surrounding people at ease. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There is usefulness in being able to walk around in tighter spaces within the earth, while at the same time having no interest in masking who they are and what they represent.
The artists were able to express that so vividly with the Incarnates, withIridikron manifesting as this mysterious mountain of a character, Vyranoth representing the frosty elegance of her elemental domain, and Fyrakk – which, as clear from my vector point on social media, has rapidly become a fan favorite because he really does not care to hide the fact that he is impish and unbound. He wears it with pride. Intimidation is something he loves, and he revels in the opportunity to participate in it. It has been wonderful and collaborative, and seeing the audience receive it well and actually be excited for the characters, their story, and their design? It’s been a joy, and it feels really good that all the hard work the team at large and our crew has done is paying off.
Q: Did you develop concept art for a visage form for Raszageth similar to those of her siblings, either for use in a flashback or otherwise?
Gregory: It’s always precarious to talk about the potential of anything future or past, but what I can say narratively is that Raszageth was the brashest of the group. Even Iridikron spoke of it. What was the exact quote? “Do not underestimate them, Fyrakk. Our sister’s overconfidence was her downfall.” She was very zealous for the cause, and while she freed her brothers and sister, she fell in the process. I think her absolute devotion to the Primalists’ cause may have been reflected in her reticence. She had no interest in expressing herself in a way that resembles these antagonists, and that ultimately led to her downfall. On the other hand, Iridikron, he’s tactical. He’s methodical. He’s going to use the methods available to him. If that involves having to take a guise to sneak among them and not be noticed as his plans move forward, that’s more of a mind of doing what is necessary, whereasRaszageth was unabashedly the storm. It tracks in that sense to me.
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Q: What are some of the hardest lessons you learned from Shadowlands and other previous expansions that improved your work in Dragonflight?
Gregory: I’ve been working onWorld of Warcraftsince Patch 1.12 in Vanilla with the release of the Eastern Plaguelands PvP trailer, and I like to think that in every single expansion, we learned something. We try something new. Sometimes it’s received very well. Other times, it might be complicated. But we are always learning, always trying to raise that bar. I thinkin-game cinematics have always done thatdemonstrably over the years.
It feels like expansion after expansion, they’re always trying something new technologically. During Shadowlands, we were just beginning to implement some advanced real-time cutscenes, as we saw Anduin holding the line. That was really emergent for us. Dragonflight was that coming full bear. We were able to see that new process, technology, and artistry all over theDragon Isles with conversations with Alexstrasza and Wrathion, and between Wrathion and Sabellian. It’s wonderful to see how this empowers the game’s narrative to be even more compelling.
But in terms of lessons learned, it’s not just us and our team - everyone on our crew is always working tomakeWarcraftbetter today than it was yesterday. A lot of that has come to bear in how we’re demonstrating the storylines. Really making it clear that we’re working with the Aspects, we know what we’re trying to achieve in uniting the flights together. It’s not difficult to understand why the players are here, who they’re helping, and what they’re fighting for. And the value in building up our antagonists, taking the time to really get to know them, understand their motivations, and understand what threat they pose. All of this really builds towards a rich experience.
Q: What are some cinematics or cutscenes you’ve worked on in the past that you consider to be breakthrough pieces that grew your skills as an artist and designer?
Gregory: Oh yeah, across coming up on 17 years? It’s been such a blessing and a privilege to work onWorld of Warcraftin all the capacities I’ve had the opportunity to, all the people I’ve gotten to collaborate with, and the many hats I’ve been able to wear over the years. I started as a video editor, then worked on the gameplay trailers, and then became a cinematic director, and now I work closely on the narrative and how it’s expressed throughcinematics on theWorld of Warcraftteam.
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But rapid fire from the beginning: Wrathgate, of course. The first in-game cinematic. I worked hard on that one. We’ve done a little nine-minute behind-the-scenes on it, too. It was an experiment that proved to be very effective. This was missing fromWoWuntil this moment. In-game cinematics had thatlegacy inWarcraft 3and even all the way back to the original games, so it just felt right. We want to see these moments occur this way. So, the Wrathgate will always have a special place in my heart because it was a very small crew, so I was wearing a lot of hats at once. As we’ve gotten bigger and more advanced, it’s naturally evolved in that I mostly work on the story now, overseeing and cinematography, and I have a wonderful crew to support the other disciplines.
But after that, I’d say theTaran Zhu vs. Garrosh Siege of Orgrimmar trailer in Patch 5.4. That was a technological leap that was very substantial. It is funny how inWorld of Warcraft, while being one game, and an ever-evolving lifestyle for some of us over nearly 20 years, you don’t notice the small changes that amount to really big changes over time.
In that piece, it was actually the technology that had been implemented in Mists of Pandaria for the Pandaren themselves. They were able to animate and deform in a more advanced way that wouldn’t be implemented for the other player characters until Warlords of Draenor when we got the player character update. But the tech was in the game, which meant cinematics could then leverage the new technology, and you could see it instantly. When Garrosh showed up, and when Taran Zhu showed up, it was like “Whoa, something happened!” And absolutely, it did! Sometimes, there are those big stepping points and leaping forward.
Next one after that is probably the Broken Shore. It was very interesting that we split the perspective. It began with two different perspectives – Alliance and Horde – and then unified with theheroic sacrifice of Varian Wrynn, and just how much buzz that generated. There were arguments on the forums because the split perspective gave them a different vantage point. It was almost a sociological experiment. Like, whoa! Technically, people could play both sides, yet the one they are most invested in has the perspective on how that fight went down.
Ysera’s passing, of course. Seminal in the community. That demonstrated just how powerful these moments can be, even without an iota of dialogue in that entire movie, except for the lyrics in Nightsong, which are just so beautiful. So many highlight moments that have lessons. I don’t want to linger on too long, or we’ll run out of time!
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Q: When you are crafting these cinematic moments, how much involvement do you have in their direction, and how much do you collaborate with other teams like the quest and narrative designers?
Gregory:World of Warcraftis this handcrafted, enormous world. The Dragon Isles is not a single story. It’s an entire land, full of all of its stories and sub-stories. Resultantly, crafting that narrative – those narratives – is collaborative. Each person that has their hands on it is bringing a portion of that story into the confluence together.
That being said, there are some master plans, some charting up where everything is going. I workedclosely with Steve Danuserand I do often collaborate with the crew to figure out what that core spine work is, proposing notions and contributing ideas just as everyone else in the narrative and design, content, and quest circle do. Ultimately, for the cinematics side, we want to make sure everything we’re expressing has been built to and has been earned to support the surrounding content.
There are also the many types of cinematics we see. There are the big, pre-generated videos, there are the real-time animated scenes, and then there are the cutscenes, all existing in different spaces. Depending on how critical the moment is, sometimes I’ve been working on that in advance for months because we know the story is going to get there, and I will work on crafting that moment with Steve and our other collaborators. But sometimes, the moments emerge organically from the development spaces, quest design, content design,and Maria Hamilton’s team. When that happens, they will collaborate with our cinematic designers to craft experiences that are seamless between the two of them.
Any and all things. Sometimes, I’m following the lead of the content design, other times I am working on crafting a story I feel will be the most powerful to express with our cinematic capabilities. But never alone. I think that’s the resident theme: Never alone. Everything is always a collaboration between many extremely talented individuals on our team.
Q: The scene between Emberthal and Ebyssian at the end of the Forbidden Reach content in Patch 10.0.7 showed a powerful moment between the two. What was it like to explore these new and returning characters in this vulnerable, quiet moment?
Gregory: The Return to the Forbidden Reach was a wonderful collaboration with the quest and content team where we were discussing exactly those goals. Ebyssian has a large role to play as one of the few survivingBlack Dragons that are coming together on the adventure in Embers of Neltharion, along with our contenders, Sabellian and Wrathion. But, with many things inWorld of Warcraft, there is always the chance the players only have a certain level of experience. Maybe they didn’t play the Highmountain Tauren experience in Legion. Resultantly, if Ebyssian was going to be central in the way that the story of 10.1 plays out, our new patch cadence really gives us the ability to set the stage for our own content much more effectively.
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One thing we talk about is those moments must have the ability to have narrative oxygen. When everything comes out in a single update, the oxygen is completely consumed by everything. But when you actually have a moment that can live by itself and breathe, it develops a different kind of inurement with the audience. And that’s what I think we saw here. It was a powerful moment, and it was wonderful to work collaboratively with our writers.
The animators we work with did an absolutely incredible job animating the performance. A Taurenand Dracthyr, neither of which have an extremely familiar human musculature to the face, and yet we were able to create these emotional experiences. And then the voice actors did such incredible work. I think there are some scenes where everything comes together, everything fires on all cylinders, and it just feels wonderful. Even the score written for that one specifically just hit all the right notes.
But it’s all in service of trying to build the narrative, right? We first sawEmberthal in the motion story animated shorts, and have big questions about where she is going, what’s her deal, how does her character go on this journey. Seeing the two of them come together and have this shared experience of being severed from their legacy, and yet aware of it, and seeing how they are going to return to, deal with, or grapple with it. They find they share a whole lot more in common, and that’s only possible when these scenes allow the characters to open up and confront either their own past, their misgivings, and their failures.
It’s really energizing to see, and it’s a perfect demonstration of our new real-time animation technology. Many people were like “Was that a video file?” No, that was done entirely in the game engine. I love how cinematics can be good at really big explosive scenes, but they’re also really effective at these extremely quiet scenes. There’s so much variety to work with.
Q: Embers of Neltharion is right around the corner. Can you give us a teaser on how many cutscenes or cinematics are coming in the new update, or if there are any surprises players should keep an eye out for?
Gregory: In Embers of Neltharion, we’ll beadventuring down into Zaralek Cavernto discover everything happening down below the Dragon Isles in a place sealed off for thousands of years. We’ll meet the local fauna and discover many of the secrets buried here specifically by Neltharion. We’ll be adventuring along with Wrathion, Sabellian, Emberthal, and Ebyssian. There will be many cutscenes that will see them interact - and many were hidden from testing – and show the unique chemistry between the brothers of the Black Dragonflight as it unfolds. I can’t wait for people to see it all come together when the update is released on May 2. That’s very exciting.
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I think the most interestingthing to discover will be within Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, given this is the original testing place. Neltharion’s most secret laboratory. Anyone who’s playedWorld of Warcraftfor a long time back to Vanilla knows Blackwing Lair was another Black Dragon laboratory where they were doing experiments. But that was long after, way down the line. This is the original place, where Neltharion first started doing experimentation with many things including building prototypes of his own armor he would later wear as Deathwing, or building the Dracthyr to begin with along with many other experiments. Particularly for the Black Dragonflight, it’s going to be a compelling tale to see how they confront, reconcile, and choose where to go with the Black Dragonflight in the future.
Q: There’s been a lot of awesome new technology that has improved cinematics recently. Are there any noteworthy improvements or newer tools you haven’t been able to discuss yet?
Gregory: We’re always looking to develop new technologies. I would love to have all the toys! I thinkthe Tuskarr feastwas this demonstration of just how you never know how we can utilize cinematic technology to just do something that puts a smile on the players’ faces. The most unexpected moment, just 10 seconds of joyous Tuskarr children cooking up the soup. I love it when opportunities like that emerge because it demonstrates how the content team is working together collaboratively and coming up with new and unique ideas, and that the array of cinematic capabilities we’ve developed can be used in a host of ways. I hope we discover even more in the future to elate our players.
Q: Any final thoughts on Dragonflight, Embers of Neltharion, and World of Warcraft?
Gregory: The team has been really proud of what we’ve created in Dragonflight so far. The story of legacy, of coming back together, of facing our past and finding our future, it’s really powerful. Seeing how It’s playing out, especially with the Red and Blue Dragonflights, and all these wonderful stories handcrafted by our development teams, seeing it go forward inthis patch with the Black Dragonflight, and seeing it through in subsequent updates in our ambitious plan to bring even more content to our players, I can’t wait to see how everyone feels about the tale we’re weaving. Hopefully as one of hope, unity, and lessons learned. It’s been these wonderful themes, and I’m just so excited to share it with this community that loves this game just as much as we do.
