Highlights
- The Burning Legion's influence on World of Warcraft is significant, having resulted in the creation of the Horde, Alliance, and the Scourge as a weapon.
- In the Dragonflight update, players must prevent a timeline where the Legion has conquered Azeroth, with corrupted Highmountain Tauren as their primary soldiers.
- The consequences of the Legion's victory would be disastrous, including the poisoning of the World Soul within Azeroth and the destruction of recognizable features on the planet.
The Burning Legion is perhaps World of Warcraft’s most infamous and influential villain, as the antagonist kickstarted the entire franchise. It is represented by an endless army of demons bent on the destruction and subjugation of all life, spreading through the universe like a plague. Many times, Azeroth has withstood its onslaughts, but World of Warcraft players may find themselves wondering what would have happened if the Legion actually won.
Despite making several appearances beforehand, the fallen Titan Sargeras and his entire army were finally defeated once and for all in World of Warcraft: Legion. The few surviving demons remained scattered across the Twisting Nether, never to invade Azeroth as a unified force again. But in Dragonflight’s Fractures in Time update, there are glimpses of a world made nearly unrecognizable.
World of Warcraft's Burning Legion Enslaves or Kills Those It Conquers
The Legion’s influence on the World of Warcraft universe cannot be overstated. It was responsible for the orcs invading Azeroth, the subsequent formation of both the Horde and Alliance, and it even created the Scourge as a weapon of mass destruction. However, the Infinite Dragonflight’s interference with the timeways in WoW: Dragonflight has opened the way to a world where the Legion actually conquered Azeroth, and it’s up to players to set things right.
It can be assumed that in this specific darker timeline, the Legion won during their latest assault upon Azeroth and not, for example, the War of the Ancients or the Third War. This assumption comes from the fact that this timeline’s primary soldiers are corrupted Highmountain Tauren, or Shu’halo as they called themselves. These Tauren live only on the Broken Isles, which was the primary staging ground for the invasion in World of Warcraft: Legion.
As an added indication of timing, one of the mounts available from the Time Rift vendors is a Felstorm Dragon, a green recolor of the Stormheim drakes from Wow's Legion expansion. The flavor text of this mount explains how even these independent dragons had to either submit to fel corruption and serve the Legion or condemn their kind to extinction. It’s an interesting tidbit of lore that explains the fate of pretty much all sapient creatures on a world belonging to the Burning Legion, that of subjugation or extermination.
Famous characters like Illidan Stormrage, otherwise a hero whose efforts to destroy the Legion were invaluable, are instead the Legion’s playthings. In this timeline, Illidan supposedly slew his own twin brother, Malfurion Stormrage, keeping his antlered skull as a trophy. It’s entirely possible, however, that is not actually Illidan - in fact, during the Legion expansion, Sargeras intended to take over Illidan’s body and use it as his own avatar. This would explain why players face Illidan as the boss in this Time Rift instead of Sargeras’ other lieutenants, Kil’Jaeden or Archimonde.
Most alarmingly, if World of Warcraft's Burning Legion succeeded, the World Soul slumbering within Azeroth would likely be poisoned by Sargeras, as was witnessed in Legion. The World Soul of Argus suffered this fate, becoming the Titan of Death and actually succeeding in killing the players. When this plan failed due to the other Titans’ resistance, Sargeras’ final act before being imprisoned was to impale his sword into Azeroth in a last-ditch effort to kill the World Soul. He very nearly succeeded, and one can only imagine what would happen to the planet if its very soul perished.
To put it lightly, the Burning Legion’s victory over Azeroth would be pretty bad. Any recognizable features in that timeline were warped out of shape and saturated with evil, forced to become part of the Burning Legion’s crusade against life. Luckily, the Bronze Dragonflight enlisted the aid of players to prevent this timeline from ever melding into the real one, and for now, at least, Azeroth’s heroes no longer have to worry about the Legion ending the world.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is available now for PC.