Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is a celebrated MMORPG that sits at the top of high fantasy storytelling in video games. On June 5, the anticipated beta for The War Within, the first installment of the Worldsoul Saga, began, and it introduced a number of exciting features that include a new playable allied race: the Earthen.

Any new race in World of Warcraft is exciting, but Earthen, along with a fresh culture and unique racial abilities, have now included backstories to add flavor for players. While they don’t have much mechanical use, backstories enable players’ imagination, which makes RPGs all the more immersive. That being said, it makes one wonder why backstory customization isn’t available for every race.

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World of Warcraft: The War Within Lets New Earthen Pick a Backstory

World of Warcraft players who make a new Earthen character after unlocking the Allied Race get to pick parts of their character's backstory.

Earthen Backstories Spell Potential Going Forward

The Introduction of Backstories for WoW Races Provides Lore and Flavor

Earthen are presented with numerous options for their backstories, including where in Khaz Algar they lived, their strengths and skills, and their aspirations. Earthen also receive special backstory options depending on WoW players’ chosen class. For shamans, they can say they “walked among the rivers and streams of the isle, maintaining the Wolds as Freya decreed,” or priests will get “I was a Caretaker, sworn to guide earthen approaching or emerging from stasis.”

These examples alone demonstrate how complex backstories can be with only a sentence, providing minor racial lore in addition to class flavor, which is especially important when introducing a new race that has yet to fully flesh out its own history. Backstories present players with the gift of individuality, an impactful trait for an MMO that aims to steadily expand on iconic WoW features for a growing, modern audience. But if World of Warcraft wants to retain its players, Blizzard might consider that the early love for this feature speaks to the success it would have with all current and future races, and it could also hint at additional features down the line.

Backstories Should Be Included With All WoW Races

For races with expansive existing lore, such as Orcs or Blood Elves, backstory options could be numerous, establishing an elf’s connection to Quel’Thalas or an orc’s ambitions for glory as a fighter or mastery of necromancy. Where players already customize their character’s appearance, perhaps operating with a clear story and vision in their mind, backstories provide the opportunity to solidify that.

On the other side of the coin, however, World of Warcraft doesn’t employ the reactive storytelling of many non-linear RPGs. For backstories to fulfill their true potential, developers would have to give them to all races as well as consider an overarching rehaul, whether mechanically or story-wise. As it is, backstories define how players individually interact with the game rather than affecting the game itself, so to maximize this feature would be a hefty investment. Yet that would potentially make the game far more entertaining for players seeking a more personalized journey.

Other RPGs have done this well. Baldur’s Gate 3 is effective at making Dungeons and Dragons’ inspired backgrounds—and the in-game roleplay that comes with them—fruitful. Each backstory is rewarded with a minor advantage for making decisions or exploring an area that aligns with it. This incentivizes self-guided immersion, arguably extending the lifespan and love of massive games such as World of Warcraft.

While players testing out Earthen have expressed enthusiasm for the backstory options, there is an inherent worry that Blizzard is limiting its further story potential by only including them with a single race. But with The War Within beta also including new features and general WoW quality-of-life improvements, there is also hope that all races might see backstories come into play. Regardless, whether they remain minor character creation choices or eventually transform the way the game is played, World of Warcraft has opened a door for players to express their individuality and creativity.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is an incredibly successful MMORPG that has been going strong for almost two decades. It's one of the highest-grossing franchises in history and is widely considered the most popular MMORPG ever made.