Cataclysm and Draenor were a decade or more ago.
The game has been about the Alliance since Legion.
Now, look at the current state of the game’s story and realize the obvious. Right now Anduin is the main character of this game, Jaina being a close second. There’s Khadgar and Alleria too, Magni, even the Lich King is an Alliance hero.
Now, what are the Horde characters that are important in the story right now?
Thrall? he’s like the only Horde character that matters, and he should have retired long ago, but there just isn’t any other Horde character that’s been given any importance by the story team. So he’s still there, being the moral support for Anduin and Jaina.
Baine? please, he’s Anduin’s sidekick at best.
The rest? Lor’Themar married and that’s all that’s going on for him. Saurfang? dead. Sylvannas? turned into a villain and literally sent to Hell.
The only “Horde” character they’ve recently pushed into having some role (if minimal) is a Menethil, ffs.
Yeah agreed. At this point the Horde aren’t important except for when they need a convenient villain or something.
They’ve had opportunities, too. Consider that the Earthmother - you know, the almost central figure of worship for the tauren - is Azeroth. And yet, every expansion featuring Azeroth as an entity goes to the dwarves. Not one time are the tauren linked to her despite, again, her being CENTRAL to their culture. This could have been an expansion to make the tauren relevant again (AND Baine) - hell, BFA could have been - and instead, that goes to the dwarves.
And yeah Calia is absolutely an Alliance character. She’s completely on board with anything the Alliance wants, and is conveniently an “undead” who is raised by the Light and suffers absolutely none of the drawbacks or judgement that “her people” suffered. As terrible as Sylvanas ended up (again, thanks to Blizzard’s brilliant writing), she EARNED her place as the leader of the Forsaken, fighting with and building them up from the ruins of Lordaeron. Of course, part of the reason is that the Forsaken have no other real leadership figures - but then again, because Blizzard couldn’t be bothered to build up any other Forsaken except Lilian Voss (who is more of an operative - though, if Vol’jin could be Warchief, she could have taken over instead).
Tauren culture has been entirely shelved in favor of being Other Druids to the Night Elves, who have also had their culture almost entirely shelved in favor of being The Main Druids. I’m not sure if the proud hunter-warrior culture slant to Taurens has been acknowledged or touched since VANILLA. Basically ditto for Night Elves who were initially supposed to be so ferocious that the Warsong were taken aback.
I’m not too worried about the Horde going forward. I think the more Metzen’s hand is involved, the more we’ll see stories that reinforce Horde identity instead of constantly eroding it into Red Alliance. I don’t think the ongoing saga is going to ever be Horde-centric, which is probably what rubs a lot of people the wrong way—having to sit out an episode when the Alliance will not is going to be a tough pill to swallow for many. And while I feel like that’s probably a perfectly justifiable reaction, the game wouldn’t be made better by deliberately making either faction sit out of the story going forward, including the Alliance. Both factions should feel invested in whatever is going on.
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I’m sure they saved a whole bunch of $ and dev time by removing a 2nd main story quest for horde. That might be the real reason for it.