When we started talking about the Legion invading Azeroth, that’s an awesome opportunity to go back and take a look at Illidan and the core of why he’s a tragic hero, what journey he’s gone on to get to where he’s at, and then tell that side of the story, looking through the other side of the glass and seeing, from that perspective, how we as players kind of screwed up a bit. But there’s this wealth of information about his side of the story that we didn’t know coming into that fight and that experience. You have to take him out in order to progress. We got to experience that previously from the player’s perspective, coming up into this moment where he feels like he is the bad guy. That’s ultimately what Illidan is about, fighting the Legion.Ĭhris Robinson: There’s always two sides to every story. We felt like his evolution into a hero for this expansion made sense. That’s always been a source of contention and led to him splitting off to go to Outland. The problem is that his methods of doing that are unsavory to Azeroth as a whole - particularly to the Night Elves and so on. We’ve always seen him as, well, his ultimate goal is to take on the Legion. Tom Chilton: Internally at Blizzard, we’ve always viewed him as a tragic hero in a way. This seems like the first time he’s being cast more on the heroic side.

He’s often leaned toward a villainous role, but it’s always been ambiguous. GamesBeat: Illidan has always been a complicated character.

Wow legion ptr finding illidan again