World of Warcraft Vice President & Executive Producer Holly Longdale spoke to ComingSoon about the influential MMORPG celebrating its 20th anniversary, Blizzard Entertainment’s participation in the increidble Netflix documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, and how the game has continued to bring players together
“Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer, died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world,” says the logline for the movie.
Tyler Treese: First, I wanted to talk about the general community because that is such a incredible and unique aspect to World of Warcraft when it comes in the gaming. We’ve all heard of marriages coming from WoW. What are some other really remarkable stories that you’ve heard, and obviously we’ll, we’ll, we will get ino Ibelin and, and what happened with Mats because that, that’s an incredible story there, but what are some of the highlights from your years of being involved?
Holly Longdale: There’s such a broad swath. Commonly, we play with friends or family or even solo, and then you get exposed to other stories people have. I was in a conversation with a veteran, who had been overseas at war and was impacted and injured. Just the trauma of that event and just dealing with all of the outcomes of that, and just trying to find a safe space. She ended up playing World Warcraft and she claims that it saved her. It gave her a reason to get up when she was in so much pain and trying to recover. It gave her a community to align with and with other veterans as well. We have a pretty vibrant community in World Warcraft where we do have veterans. So, that’s a story.
We’ve got stories of players who have families that are distributed across the globe and they come together to play. It keeps families connected, and sharing some joy. I can tell you, sometimes talking with my mom, it’s like, “I appreciate you went and played Mahjong today, mom, but, let’s get in the game and do some fun stuff together.” It puts a nice escape and something really relatable for people. People have not only gotten married, but they’ve named their children after characters in the game and locations. I don’t even know how many pets are named after after characters and so on, but there is just so many layers of connection. We’ve got a lot of deaf players who play together and they achieve incredible things. We have players who are blind, who have figured out how to play our game, and we try and support them with tools where we can. But there’s so many people that have played this game and still play this game that have all unique stories and have overcome great challenges in a lot of cases, and find their way to joy in World of Warcraft.
These are some remarkable examples, and I love that you mentioned the accessibility support and the whole a11y movement within gaming has been really great to see.
One thing that’s really interesting about World of Warcraft is it’s gone on for two decades. It’s been this kind of constant safe haven for people as well. It’s just like something reliable that people can always go back to, and that community’s always there. What has been most unique about seeing this one game continue to have support — a new expansion just came out — and really just stand the test of time?
Yeah, it is incredible. I’m a long time player, a more recent employee, in the scope of 20 years, but I’ve been playing since beta. A lot of credit goes to the team, and the original team that created Warcraft. Certainly having Chris Metzen back has brought a reminder of how we lead everything with heart, right? So it’s about the impact that you feel and that you have while experiencing Azeroth. There’s so much charm. We’ve always held onto our humor, call it what you will, but there’s a lot of charm and delight.
Even for myself, the naming of the quest lines, I get a tremendous amount of joy about the tongue in cheek and the puns. There’s a reason to smile. I think because we have this charming, sort of wistful art style, it kind of gives you a breather from the everyday. It truly has magic attached to it. I think because of that, it hasn’t lost its relevancy. We’re not standing up against what other games may be doing because we are fairly unique and we’ve remained consistent. Even though we’ve modernized and improved over time, I think it’s been critical to maintain the mainstays of WoW, which is the whimsy, the charm, and also the challenge.
This is a game where foundationally you’re better together and that if you find other people, your life is gonna be that much better. I think those foundations continue and we’re always looking at ways to build on that. Community is everything. The other half of that too is, I’ve seen it firsthand in my roles on the team, this idea that community is everything we listen to, the players’ feedback has been absolutely critical to us in the past two to three years. We listen intently and we pay attention to what we see players doing in the game and do what we can to reinforce it with this idea. Especially now with he notion of leave no player behind. There’s so many people that enjoy different ways to play, and we wanna provide as much of that as possible to maintain this relevancy, to maintain the joy and engagement people find in World Warcraft.
I think you made just an incredible point, which is that the actual game design leads people to the community. It’s so easy to be like, “Oh, I just want to disconnect from the world. I’m gonna isolate, I’m just gonna play this game for the next four hours.” But when it comes to World of Warcraft, you’re actually getting human interaction and even if your intention was to just get away, you’re actually getting rewarding human interaction in all that. That’s such a great result of the gameplay. That kind of loop of getting people into interacting with others is so special and makes World Warcraft so unique as well.
I do think, to your point, there’s something really magical about even if you do decide, “I’ve got an hour. I’ve got this goal. I wanna get in the game and just spend time on my own and take a breather.” You’re still surrounded and see people around you. There’s this idea of that even if I may not be grouping with someone or chatting with them directly, they’re there. You’re not alone. There’s something really comforting in that, even while you’re toodling around and soloing and taking on your tasks, that you’re part of something bigger.
I wanted to ask you about this fantastic documentary, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. I talked to the director, Benjamin Ree, and there’s the saying “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” He mentioned being so incredibly nervous because they had made the film and then they went to Blizzard and they were like, “Hey, can we use your IP and your characters in this?” Could you speak to that decision to allow it? Because it’s so great to see the story spread and to actually see those characters in the film just adds such a great dimension and a uniqueness to this documentary.
First of all, when you, it’s not just when you hear the story, but when you meet his family, like Robert [Steen], I met Robert first. You cannot separate your heart from the incredible story of Mats and his family, and that you have a family also, particularly in Robert, who’s now an advocate for gaming, and that it can save lives and can give purpose and can give comfort and safety and build meaningful relationships. I think to have someone willing, like Benjamin, to tell the story for us where we don’t have to, for example, make statements about how great our game is at connecting people and giving them purpose where they may struggle. That it came together on their own, I can’t imagine a world where we would say no. Just the magic and the creativity with how it was framed to be able to use our models and our in-game world, to be able to tell his story is filled with so much heart. It’s exactly an expression of who we are, fully about heart and connections and living a life online that has meaning.
It’s such a beautiful documentary. I think back about the scene where his father, it’s at the funeral and the father’s just talking about how he thought Mats didn’t get to live a fulfilling life, and then he learns all of this after the fact with all this outpouring support, and he realizes just how many friends and how many shared experiences he really had through online. It is such a touching scene. He has this hilarious line about his son being a bit of a womanizer in World of Warcraft. It’s very funny. It’s just like the good and the bad. He really had a full human experience through that and community. Can you speak to your reaction to the film?
I can speak for myself and certainly a large portion of the team, an astounding reaction fundamentally that the work we do every day can have an impact on someone’s life. While we quite often get lost in the details and we’re looking at deadlines, it’s such an incredible reminder of the power of what we do and that it is a very meaningful gift for a lot of people. We take that to heart and we take it seriously, and it’s highly motivating. It makes us want to do more and support more people of varying types. A small example was the arachnophobia filter [that turns spider enemies into crabs] that we did for the current expansion. We want people to be able to come and play in safety and be who they wanna be and live the life they wanna live. So, yeah, an incredible impact, particularly on me and the team. It takes this idea of we make games to another level, a very important profound level.
Another thing that the, the documentary really underlined for me was just how global the appeal is, because this was connecting Mats with players from several other different countries in Europe. I know World of Warcraft is huge in China as well, and there’s just a global appeal of the game. Could you speak to just that aspect, because it’s so easy to get trapped in your own bubble and think of your own ecosystem that you’re in, and to know that there’s people playing this game all over the world is just bewildering when you actually think about it.
It really is. Just knowing that Mats’ guild, Starlight, all came together to enjoy each other’s company and certainly to support Mats after he had passed. It’s something we remind ourselves of every single day that it’s not just that we are global game players around the world play differently, and based on the culture they’re in, they can play differently. So we’re constantly trying to be wiser, and be able to serve our communities globally better, ultimately over time.
With our relaunch in China, huge education, we’re really excited by the team we have there who’s digging into how they play differently. Even at ChinaJoy, I went there with Ion Hazzikostas, the game director, and just the love for Warcraft was just astounding. They’re just a huge fandom. Again, it’s like another really grounding moment where you truly grasp the impact you have on people’s lives and how you can deliver so much joy simply through a video game and a connected community. So, it’s something I think we always wanna aim to get better at. I think we want all players from around the world to feel represented in some way in our game.
This is also a big week for the game. The 20th Anniversary Celebration is launching this week. What are you most excited for players to really get an experience from that?
There’s a lot to be said about the updated versions of the Tier 2 sets. It’s basically just a feast of nostalgia, and a lot of really fun, engaging stuff to do. The team lovingly spent a lot of time creating a ton of novelty and a celebration of where we came from and where we are now. We’ve kind of gone a bit of this full circle route, even as we’ve evolved over time where the stories we’re telling and revisiting focus on the last 20 years. As we’ve said in the past with our Worldsoul saga that kicked off with The World Within, the recent expansion, this idea of it’s all coming back to roost.
It’s 20 years of the threads of story leading us to this moment and through this saga. We just wanna take a moment and celebrate that this month. Then, we’ll have an event coming up. In the next couple weeks we’ll be sharing some news and announcements like we do during this anniversary month. We’re really excited. We’re not just excited about this moment in time, but we are aiming for the future, the next decade, the next two decades, and beyond. We don’t see, there’s no end to it. We just wanna keep living and having fun in Azeroth.
With the celebration and the launch of the recent expansion, is this a good time for lapsed players to check back in?
Absolutely. I mean, there is no better time, in my opinion. You’re getting it on the ground floor of a really great story. It’s amazing to see the feedback from the community that it feels like coming home [with] the storytelling. We’ve got a good rhythm. Again, with the features we’ve added with Delves, the mini dungeons where you can progress on your own or with a friend, we’ve got Follower Dungeons for all the dungeons in this expansion where you can play all the dungeons solo with some followers if you want. We’re trying to really make the game approachable for anyone in any style of play. So yes, absolutely. Now is a great time. You’re getting in on the ground floor of an epic saga. Come join us.
I’m back to playing every day with my husband. wWe get busy and it’s been a while, but for he and I, we’re a bit more on the casual, “We just love WoW” side. It is an absolute joy. It’s a great time to be a WoW fan for sure.
Finally, one aspect of the documentary that I found really touching was the mother using it to bond with her neurodivergent son, who didn’t like physical contact and they got to hug in the game, and then build up that trust and to that feeling in real life. Seeing that story in the film was so touching as well. So it is great to see that, be it you and your husband or that family, people find like these really great ways to the bond throughout the gaming experience, which is so special.
A hundred percent, and thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. If we could have time to talk to everyone, there’s so many unique stories about how this game has enriched lives, including my own. If you would’ve told me 25 year ago, that I’d be not only working in gaming, but I’d be leading what I feel is the best game on the planet, there’s just magic everywhere. Honestly, it’s a privilege to be able to work on this game with this team and with our players.
