y son... the day you were born, the very forests of Lordaeron whispered the name... “Arthas.”

The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Published by Insight Editions, an imprint of Palace Publishing Group
Available in bookstores January 2009

Narrated by the deceased King Terenas Menethil II, the opening cinematic for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King features Arthas raising the frost wyrm Sindragosa from beneath the frozen crust of Icecrown Glacier. Although the cinematic runs just over three minutes in length, countless hours of creative exploration, brainstorming, modeling, animating, editing, and retouching went into its development.

To shed light on the creative process behind the forging of Blizzard Entertainment’s latest cinematic, the Blizzard Insider presents an exclusive sneak preview of the upcoming book The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Available now, the book features over 200 pieces of artwork, detailed write-ups of the lore behind the cinematic, illustrated storybooks, two collectable prints, and behind-the-scenes "making-of" commentary from the trailer’s creators.

So read on, and begin your journey into the creation of Blizzard Entertainment's latest cinematic.

The Backstory

The two previous cinematics for World of Warcraft were montage pieces: a series of different action snapshots woven together. You may recall the dwarven hunter and bear who opened and closed the first World of Warcraft cinematic, or the night elf guardian running through the forest by the light of the moon. You also witnessed the epic battles and feats of magic that introduced the world to the blood elves and draenei in The Burning Crusade cinematic. Montage was the method by which the Blizzard cinematics team captured the excitement and diversity of the World of Warcraft in cinematic segments that are approximately three minutes long. After months of debating how to apply this to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Blizzard ultimately decided to take a different approach, crafting more of a narrative that focuses on a few central characters who will play major roles in the new continent of Northrend.

Before officially deciding on a narrative approach, though, the cinematics team explored a number of different concepts, beginning with an array of ideas that could potentially become part of a final montage piece. This first stage of reproduction—storyboarding—was crucial to working out the rough parameters for the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic that eventually emerged.

Storyboarding

The storyboard artists began their work on Wrath of the Lich King in the middle of 2007. They knew that Arthas, the central and tragic character of the game release, would be featured in the cinematic. As in previous cinematics, they also knew they wanted to introduce viewers to the new environments included in the expansion. In the case of Wrath of the Lich King, this goal meant depicting Northrend and some of the key features of the new continent. Other than that, no other details had been formally established when they began developing the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic. The sky was the limit. At first, drawing upon their experience with their previous releases, their approach was to try to put together a montage that topped their previous releases. They set about generating scores of ideas that could then be knitted together in a three-minute piece that would explain Arthas’ return and the rise of the Lich King.

What ensued in the initial planning stage was a flurry of creative expression that served the team well in later stages, although many concepts were discarded. Veteran storyboarders understand that a large portion of the stuff they create will be thrown away; only a small percentage of the content they create survives the intensive review process. This is especially true in the case of montages, with their largely unconnected scenes. No one knows which scenes will be saved and which will be put aside. Yet, the more storyboard artists draw, the more they begin to see something cohesive emerge through their illustrations. Most of their storyboards were drawn in black and white and featured a variety of detail, ranging from primitive, basic depictions of events to highly stylized, detailed illustrations.

Drawing on scenarios that were being discussed in game development at the time, the cinematics team began playing around with a number of different ideas that involved the races and features of Northrend. In one of the scenarios that made it through a number of development passes, the Vrykul, a giant humanoid race that resides in Northrend, harpoon ships to the bottom of the Howling Fjord. The team also wanted to feature another one of the new races of Northrend, the Tuskarr. They thought that a mini montage of daily life for the Tuskarr (e.g., ice fishing, battling the Scourge, etc.) would be an effective way to introduce this new culture while also showcasing some of the different regions and features of Northrend’s landscape.

From the start, the team knew that they wanted to create a scene that introduced the Lich King as a powerful adversary. One of the first ideas that captured the team’s collective imagination was a vision of the Lich King as he freezes a fleet of ships. This scene would have depicted him as a menacing, extremely powerful character with mastery over the elements and his frozen northern environment. All of the ideas that made it through this initial development stage were gripping and promised great opportunities for developing striking art and cinematic content, but the team quickly realized that there was particularly strong potential surrounding the sequence featuring the Lich King. After discussing the character in depth, they decided that the cinematic should center on him, and in fact be a narrative about him, rather than simply including him as one character in a larger montage. While epic and relevant to the expansion and player expectations, the other scenes would detract from the Lich King and some of the other core ideas and images that the team knew were at the heart of this character and the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Finding the Essence of the Story

Once they decided they wanted to pursue a narrative cinematic about the Lich King, the cinematics team found itself confronted with crucial questions about what it wanted to reveal about the Lich King, his history as the good Prince Arthas, and his character development. A journey through Northrend seemed needed. The Lich King also needed to do something that demonstrated the epic scope of his power, such as freezing the sea and then crossing the vast expanse of ice he had made with a mere gesture.

And then it became crystal clear. The cinematic would combine a display of the Lich King’s massive power in an arctic landscape with a dragon idea that had suddenly emerged when one of the team’s concept artists brought a sketch of a wyrm to a roundtable meeting. This image instantly got everyone talking. The story essence was born in this pairing of Arthas with the dragon. Having sensed the uneasy spirit of a great blue dragon and knowing she would be a powerful ally, the Lich King would find the dragon's remains and reanimate her (one of the Lich King’s powers, after all, is to raise the dead). They would join together and lead the Scourge.

This pairing of the Lich King and Sindragosa the Frost Queen provided a strong set of central images for the cinematic. The meeting between such powerful beings also implied some significant backstory. Putting the two of them together provided great lore material for both the cinematic and the world of Azeroth. A new chapter of World of Warcraft mythology was born that would play a central part in the development of the entire Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Arthas and Sindragosa, a regal blue dragon killed in an epic battle, would create a terrifying and powerful partnership. Together they would wage war against the rest of Azeroth. Welcome to Northrend. Embrace the Wrath of the Lich King.