You could call it The Long Walk. I'm sitting in a near characterless training room deep within Blizzard's headquarters, ready to jump into the latest version of Wrath of the Lich King. We're fresh off the zeppelin, moored at Northrend's eastern tip. This is Howling Fjord, one of two landing zones available for level 70 players to enter Northrend.
It is nothing short of spectacular: giant cliffs hug a long lake, paths cut into their sides. Across the chasm lies a crashed zeppelin, perpetually ablaze. Buzzing the chasm are orcish dragon riders, flinging boulders at the villagers below. The path into the fjord begins at Vengeance Landing, a small harbour cut into the southern edge. Vengeance Landing is a Forsaken town, the race of undead allied with the Horde. The Forsaken have never had their own architecture in World of Warcraft; they've always squatted on or under Alliance villages or castles (see: the Undercity). You could see Wrath of the Lich King as their coming-out party: they've finally got their own look (a cross between mad-scientist plasma orb chic and spiky metal goth), and they'll be leading the Horde fight against the Undead Scourge.
The Scourge are at the heart of Lich King's story. At the northernmost tip of Northrend sits Arthas, a former prince who lost his mind during the events of Warcraft III. In the opening scenes of that game, he betrayed his father, his friends and his humanity by bringing the undead plague to the human capital of Lordaeron. Eventually, he fled to Northrend, sat behind a great big magic wall called a Wrath Gate, and joined with a god to become the Lich King. Now, finally, the combined might of the Alliance and Horde are setting out to bring him down, once and for all.
That story begins immediately: the very first Horde quest chain in Vengeance Landing sees you fighting off an Alliance ambush. Your first job is to visit a line of gunners, popping off shots at a small Alliance camp. The Horde soldiers aren't making any progress, because of the cannons perched atop the fortifications. To help the infantry, you're sent by bat to the navy, under attack offshore. The Horde sailors are suffering under the same ambush - your second quest is to clear their decks to make room for the support guns to fire.
The last part: back to dry land, and a quest to drop flares on the Alliance defences, to aid the sighting of those naval guns. Already, the improvement in Wrath of the Lich King's design is clear: the questing has rhythm and momentum: just one more objective...
But the follow-up quests can wait. We're here for the tour, remember? The path from Vengeance Landing starts with a lift that rises up into the cliffs - a metal chain extending from a carved-out dragon's head. At the top, a small Horde force are in perpetual battle with local warlords: the viking-ish Vrykule. We ignore the fight and start stalking the paths, looking for signposts pointing into the valley below.
There's one ahead: and sitting atop it, a raven. Cute. Then the raven flaps his wings and flies off. It joins another, circling the forest canopy. Blizzard have been busy adding small atmospheric touches here and there. The zeppelin on fire hanging above Howling Fjord is another.
At the base of Howling Fjord is the first Lich King five-man dungeon, Utgarde Keep. You enter it through a giant stone skull, bashing your way through the Vrykule villages that flank the entrance. Inside, the Vrykule are offering up their hardiest warriors to the Lich King. You'll fight them through three separate instances: a level 70 five-man, Utgarde Catacombs (expect zombies), a level 80 five-man (Utgarde Pinnacle) and a 10- and 25-man raid dungeon.
There's just enough time to admire the fire-breathing multi-storey skull at the entrance of Utgarde before leaving. Above, two beta testers are dropping giant cloth packages from their twin-seater helicopters, dangling them like wrecking balls. Cool.
But there's no time to stare. Grizzly Hills awaits. As with all of Wrath of the Lich King's zones, there is a central fiction to be uncovered. In Grizzly Hills, the story is this: the Furbolgs, keen gardeners, were growing a world tree, which would become their capital city, Grizzlemaw. But they planted it in a bad place. Underneath all of Northrend, and currently bursting through cracks in the ground, is an ancient society of angry insects, the Nerubians. Bad magic, and bad foundations. The World Tree collapsed and its rotting corpse, tall as any mountain, dominates the zone. Read its rings to see how long it lasted.
The real problem, though, for players and the Grizzly Furbolgs, is the trolls. To the North of the fallen World Tree is a troll temple, Drak'Tharon Keep. It's a two-wing dungeon meant for players between level 72 and 76, a strange place filled with dinosaurs and lizards, and teeming with undead. Its final boss fight takes place on raised terraces, where the wizard will bounce players from platform to platform. You're sent in to discover just why the Trolls are leaving their home zone of Zul'Drak. That's the next stop on the tour.
There are plenty of Troll temples and dungeons in World of Warcraft, but never a Troll zone. Zul'Drak is a homecoming, then - a sprawling mass of ruins and broken stone temples that serve as home to the Ice Trolls. The good news is that the Ice Trolls are the first to have any real success against the Scourge. The Alliance and Horde are sending heroes to their zone to discover what weapon or magic they're using to push back the Scourge.
There is bad news, however. At the very centre of the zone is a vast pyramid. It's where the trolls previously worshipped their animal gods. When the Scourge invaded, they stopped worshipping their gods, and began sacrificing them. It granted them just enough power to repel the undead. But now the gods are angry. Rather than stay and watch the fireworks, our tour moves west, to Dragonblight. For many races, Northrend is their home. For the dragons, it is their funeral home.
Dragonblight is their final resting place, a giant, awe-inspiring graveyard filled with the skeletal remains of long-dead flying lizards. In Warcraft lore, the Dragons are split into five aspects: Red, Bronze, Blue, Green and Black. Each aspect has their own culture, and their own shrine, and own diplomatic relations (Blizzard describe the zone's main dungeon, Wyrmrest Temple, as the UN for dragons). Some are under siege from the Scourge, hoping to raise their own race of undead dragons. Some have sought out heroes to help. Others have joined with Arthas.
It's here that the chaos of colour and ideas that Wrath of the Lich King brings come spectacularly to life: the temple of each aspect is a riot of architecture and decay. Dragonblight is also where players will get their first taste of level 80 raids: with the floating undead temple Naxxramas hovering over the horizon, dripping green ooze into the snow. Even weirder: it's also home to the neutral city in Northrend. And it's a place we already know; the bubble city of Dalaran has been moved entirely, from the Alterac Mountains, to float in the sky. In the move it's gathered a weird oily sheen - another of the small technology updates Blizzard are applying to WoW.
It's chilly here. Better to move to somewhere warm. Try Sholazar Basin, a semi-sequel to Un'Goro Crater's Lost World vibe. Here is the proof of Northrend's unremitting variety. Surrounded by snow-capped peaks is a tropical rainforest - supported by heating pylons and crystalline radiators. There are areas where the snow drips right into the forest, and where rare lizards and tigers are endangered by the encroaching Scourge.
But there is, as ever, a twist. Two separate factions, the Murlocs and Worgen (werewolves) live side-by-side in Sholazar Basin. They're locked in a perpetual war, one in which you can tip the balance for either side. Both sides offer quests that antagonise each other - you'll need to choose a team and pummel their opposition. You'll side with the Murlocs, obviously.
Leaving the basin, signposts lead to the other starting zone, Borean Tundra. The Tundra is just that - a near endless expanse of ice and rock that seems to stretch on for miles. It's home to the Tuskarr, a neutral race of sentient Walruses - stout, bearded, basically amusing. All the Tuskarr really care about is fishing, whaling, and ice: that's a problem because the Naga have installed giant generators and are attempting to melt the glaciers.
The Horde base in Borean Tundra is Warsong Hold - a rougher, more metallic version of Orgrimmar. It's a new look for the Horde, and for good reason: the leader of the Northrend expedition is a more aggressive champion. For now, dealing with the Alliance can wait: because the Nerubians are climbing the walls. And they've recently developed a taste for peons. That's your first introduction to life in Borean Tundra: killing spiders, placating beetles, and freeing orc workers from their sticky jails.
We'd stay, but there's more important work to be done. Like tracking down the local league of druids: DEHTA (Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals). DEHTA are here because the scourge of Azeroth's fauna, the hunter Hemet Nesingwary, has set up camp in the Borean Tundra. While he's off encouraging players to cull the local wildlife, DEHTA is plotting revenge. And you can consider their questline penance for Nesingwary's ridiculous grind quests.
DEHTA ask you to play tricks on hunters, springing baby elephants from traps, and feeding four-legged friends. Their quest line ends in a ridiculous mounted chase: with you riding down a boss character atop a woolly mammoth, complete with charge, and elephantine roar abilities.
There's so much more to see, but our time with Wrath of the Lich King is coming to a close. As a final reward, Jeff Kaplan, co-lead game designer, treats me to a flyby of Northrend. Certain images stand out. The Wrathgate, a giant wall behind which sits Arthas. A Nerub'Ar web-lord, a beetle the size of an elephant shambling out of its lair. A farm, where sheaves of corn dance to a deathly beat. Villages built into the edge of Howling Fjord - dangling lanterns from carved wooden dragon-heads. A lonely lighthouse, peering into the westernmost edge of Northrend. An aberration: a goat-man made entirely of bubbles. Another ruined zeppelin, half-buried in a snowdrift....
Northrend is a place like no other. Exploring it will be a rare thrill.
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