Warcraft 2 allowed us to start branching into stuff like Dwarves, Trolls, Elves, and Goblins," Didier says. "In the first one, we didn't even have Elves. Warcraft 3 not only continued the story from the second game, it built upon it with cinematics, voice acting, and more. While Warcraft 2 was a continuation of the success Blizzard had with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos is where Didier says Blizzard came into its own. Blizzard's games were a little brighter, a little more cartoon-inspired compared to its counterparts, who drew from Dungeons & Dragons artwork or the famous Frank Frazetta paintings. Warcraft had a bit more hyper-fantasy to it," he says. People had an idea of fantasy that was dark, sort of heavy. "Nowadays you have a lot of game with sort of a Blizzard art style, but when we made Warcraft it was pretty unique. | Blizzard Entertainmentĭidier notes that Warcraft was part of forging the Blizzard art style.
Visually, Warcraft was a massive upgrade over the first, while coming only a year later. It would introduce characters like Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore, and locations like Theramoore and the Dark Portal, which remain part of World of Warcraft's lore today. While Warcraft's art was rooted in normal European medieval fantasy, Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness is when Blizzard started to get creative in terms of art and storytelling. The first game kept it simple, but the second offered Blizzard an existing audience that had bought into concept, allowing it to expand. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was a moderate success for the small studio, and Warcraft 2 came only a year later. We didn't think it out, we didn't go, 'Which axe would go best with this?' It's a group of eight pixels with a little bit of red. We'd be like, 'Here's the artwork for the grunt," and that's what it was. "Development was a lot different back then, we didn't do concepts. The art team wasn't completely segmented like modern development, so every artist had to do a little bit of everything. | Blizzard Entertainmentīlizzard was a small team in those days, and Didier notes that Warcraft was developed in "a matter of nine months".
Orcs were green and brutal, and humans were noble and knightly." Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, the game that started it all. We wanted humans to be the good guys and orcs to be the bad guys. At the very beginning, it was very simple. From then on, we were trying to build things that weren't too far out, that people wouldn't relate to.
Back then we wanted things that a guy who had seen a movie or read Lord of the Rings would know. bad guys that a lot of people would know. "Orcs and Humans, those are the kind of classic good guys vs. Keeping it simple and relying on fantasy tropes that players might already be familiar with was the basis from going with Warcraft's core conflict. We had all these ideas of different things we could do." "We were coming up with, 'What are the things that we want to do?' We had guys coming with ideas from their groups, from Lord of the Rings. We were limited by what we could do with the programs we were working on," Didier tells me. "I was very junior and young on that first one. Warcraft didn't have a script, and the team was throwing concepts out to see what worked. The original game was developed by combining disparate ideas from Blizzard's own The Lost Vikings, real-time strategy (RTS) games like Dune 2, and Lemmings. Didier remembers being a young artist in a studio that worked fast and tried new things. He was there when the studio first broke ground on the franchise. Most importantly though, Didier has been with Warcraft since the beginning, starting as an artist at Blizzard in 1991. Sam Didier, in all his Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain glory.
He's also the lead singer in Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain, the Blizzard-based metal band. In his current position, Didier oversees the look and feel of all of Blizzard's titles, while also managing the look of licensed products. It's almost been 25 years since November 23, 1994, when Warcraft: Orcs & Humans first debuted on PC, and Warcraft is still kicking.Īt an event to talk about all things Warcraft, I had a chance to sit down with Blizzard Entertainment senior art director Samwise Didier. Over the years, it's had successful commercials, an unsuccessful film adaptation, and reams of comics and novels. Hearthstone is still a wildly successful spinoff and Warcraft 3 is getting a new lease on life with Warcraft 3 Reforged. World of Warcraft might be a far from its heyday as the biggest name in gaming, but it's still played monthly by millions of players.