Metzen: Warcraft shares DNA with "Tolkien fantasy", "a lot of heart"

What makes Warcraft? Blizzard’s Chris Metzen says it’s that they give the world ”a lot of heart,” and while cheesy to say it’s ”the X-factor”.

Sure it has a lot in common with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but Blizz ”toss in these crazy things” like crystals from space, and steam guns.

”It’s hard to say, because there are so many cool fantasy settings out there. In terms of its DNA, I don’t know that Warcraft is all that different from a lot of Tolkien fantasy,” creative development VP Chris Metzen told PC Gamer, reports CVG.

He was asked what people connected to in the Warcraft universe. ”You’ve got elves and dwarves and magic. But we toss in these crazy things like space crystals and steam rifles.” The most recent expansions to World of Warcraft have amped up the ‘crazy’.

”It is broad enough that people can actually mesh with this world… but part of the magic is that we try to give this world a lot of heart. That seems a little cheesy, but it’s part of the X-factor for me,” he continued.

Blizzard today commands the most powerful and influential MMO there is, and the next expansion will release this year evolving the original two continents of Azeroth. Do you like Warcraft’s tongue-in-cheek approach to the fantasy world, videogamer?