Wow fans have lately debated the concept art and environments of Northrend at the official forums. Specially the fact not all areas are frostlands. Think of Northrend as the North Pole or Antartica. This is what Samwise Didier, Blizzard Art Senior Director, said to Computer and Video Games Online.
CVG: What attracted you to Northrend, from an artistic side?
Samwise Didier: We’ve always wanted to visit that environment and this felt like the right time to do it. The community’s voiced concerns that it’d just be a huge continent of ice and snow.
We’re addressing that by doing a lot of green zones and a lot of transition zones and coastal areas. It seemed like a really good opportunity to shift some stuff around and give it a new face and visual feel we haven’t really seen before.
Also it’s a reaction to how high fantasy we got with the last expansion. Going to space and some of the stuff that strayed from the feel of Warcraft and some of that hardcore fantasy vibe.
We want to get back to that with Northend, go for that gothic fantasy vibe where it’s a little bit darker and a little bit more hardcore – especially with the Death Knight.
The Death Knight armour is very dark with spikes and skulls, and then we have the 15-foot tall Vikings who are going to be very prevalent in this cold environment, as well as some others which are just really hardcore, brutal cultures. The art team and designers talked and wanted to get back to that kind of feeling of a threatening, cold, hardcore world.
Read the full interview
