I really really really like The Maw and Torghast in concept, and in a lot of ways I like it in execution as well, but I think that the ambition of the designers in this case ran into a combination of the ESRB and the diversity of WoW’s playerbase in terms of genre preference.
One of the challenges of creating what I think that they were going for here, which is broadly a horror experience, is that to a certain degree you are intentionally seeking to make your audience uncomfortable. This is why the Horror Game is such a niche genre that is largely relegated to being the sort of thing most people would prefer to watch other people play on Youtube rather than play themselves.
The most common ways that horror games stress the players out aren’t going to work in an MMO. I refer to depriving the player of critical information (usually sensory), disempowering them to the point of uselessness, isolating them from any sense of safety or familiarity, etc. This isn’t solely due to the technical challenges of implementing anything like this in an MMO environment, but also because retaining all these things comes at a significant cost in gameplay complexity. From a purely mechanical standpoint, most horror games are relatively easy and have relatively simple mechanics. This is because the more that you have the player focusing on mechanics, the less likely it is they’ll be paying attention to the things that they need to in order to be scared.
In this sense, horror games are almost like magic shows. They are carefully tailored illusions and maintaining the illusion is the primary goal of the developers. This obviously runs headfirst into the nature of how WoW works. You can’t have a dark, isolated, agency-depriving dungeon that’s meant to be run many times repeatedly. Even if you manage to create the perfect Torghast or the perfect zone that executes the illusion perfectly, it’s subject to severe diminishing returns every time the player does it.
But there are other ways to convey horror that are perfectly compatible with WoW, and we know it because Blizzard has had effective horror in WoW without sacrificing their mechanical focus, and they did it while keeping their T rating at that. It simply requires subtlety.
I’ll use music as an example. One of the reasons a lot of effective horror examples come from Vanilla is because the musical philosophy at the time was different. The music was composed very clearly to be ambient, ie a part of the environment itself rather than as something meant to accent particular actions or events. The best examples of this are the old Plaguelands, Duskwood, and Naxxramas themes.
Naxxramas in particular is, in my opinion, World of Warcraft’s horror masterpiece, and the music adds to it because it actively seeks to make the player uncomfortable, but not in a way that they actively notice that it’s intended to be uncomfortable. The Construct Quarter uses consistent low, notes that always seem to go on for too long, especially that one string section that is constantly messing with your expectations in terms of how the chord should progress and when it should end. (The section I’m talking about starts at 2:10 for reference)
https://youtu.be/i5_3cTF4A14?t=130
The Death Knight quarter does something similar, with a consistent droning harpsichord that does have a consistent pattern, but gets more and more intense over time, conveying a sense of inevitability until it finally releases the tension with a harsh crash.
I could gush over Naxxramas endlessly as I think that it is arguably Blizzard’s crowning achievement in terms of implementing horror into its game, but the point that I’m getting at is that Blizzard most effectively conveys horror when it resists its urge to epic things up too much and focuses on subtlety.
In that sense, I think that Torghast is mostly successful, albeit this is obviously subjective. If the purpose of a horror aesthetic, WoW style, is a feeling of discomfort borne of oppression, Torghast does a whole lot right. I like that the soundtrack is one of the most reserved we’ve heard from Blizzard as of late, and some of the tracks really stand out in conveying a sense of entropy or decay. I like the industrial theming of it; some of the most effective horror-themed areas in WoW (such as the aforementioned Construct Quarter, but also other places like the Sludge Fields or the Plagueworks) have had an industrial theme, and it’s effective because it encapsulates a sense of powerlessness against the sheer scale of what you’re up against.
I do believe that some wings in Torghast convey this better than others. This may be a matter of personal taste, but I find myself more aesthetically drawn to Skoldus Halls, The Fracture Chambers, and the Soulforges. I think that this is because they are relatively small, with narrow corridors, low ceilings, and restrictive movement. They feel oppressive and claustrophobic as a result, which enhances the feeling of unease of being in there. One gets the impression of being trapped in the bowels of an infinite labyrinthian machine designed for the sole purpose of torture, with no hope of escape or relief no matter what you do. It is very I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream in that regard.
Conversely, the other three areas (Coldheart Interstitia, The Upper Reaches, and Mort’regar) don’t feel particularly frightening to me and I think it’s for similar reasons, namely that they’re too open. You have too much information on where you are and where everything else is, it’s easy to imagine various escape routes, the location of the exit is usually apparent, and because you can see more mobs at any given time the area feels “busier” which has the effect of making the player feel comparatively less isolated.
Obviously every layer has more open areas mixed in with more closed ones, but to put it simply I think that the more confined the player feels the more oppressed they will feel, and thus the horror aesthetic will be enhanced.
The Maw itself I think also largely adheres to this for me. The places where I feel the most uncomfortable also tend to be the places where either your movement or your sight is comparatively restricted. I would say that the depths of Gorgoa is the most effective horror setpiece in The Maw. I actually love that bit in the intro where you’re pushed in for the first time and are immediately confronted with the sheer horrible scale of what’s happening. You’re surrounded with suffering, suffering that you the player cannot do anything about, and indeed some of it you may have even inadvertently caused yourself. You can hear the cries of the dead begging for mercy and as long as you are in the river your sight is severely restricted.
I already knew the premise of the expansion when I played through that section for the first time and the first time in Gorgoa was bonechilling to me. I still actually get kind of uncomfortable when I adventure there even now, and so naturally I seek to adventure there as much as possible because I appreciate the effective aesthetic.