You can expect some of WoW's big timers to bite it during the Worldsoul Saga trilogy: 'It’ll be a lot of death, I’m afraid'

Having any big-name character bite it in a long-running game like an MMO is a toughie—obviously, you want your stories to have stakes, or else your players are going to tune out by the ninth fakeout. On the other hand, if you do it wrong, then everyone's going to be insufferably mad at you for the rest of the game's lifespan. Which, for a two-decade-plus game like WoW, is gonna be a while.

That doesn't mean World of Warcraft isn't going to keep trying, mind you. The Worldsoul Saga is one of Blizzard's most ambitious moves yet—committing to a three-expansion story arc where everything's been more-or-less planned out, giving them the chance to tell larger, bigger-reaching narratives.

Narratives where someone is gonna bite the dust at some point, most likely. That's per an interview by PCG contributor Heather Newman, written for issue 420 of our magazine that'll be hitting shelves soon.

Heather spoke to both game director Ion Hazzikostas and design director Maria Hamilton about Midnight, the midpoint of the Worldsoul Saga—and both WoW leads emphasised that the team is winding up for some big swings.

"There will be important characters that do not survive the trilogy. It’ll be a lot of death, I’m afraid," Hamilton explains. "Those are hard decisions. We have arguments about, ‘Is this the right time? What will we do with that person gone?’" Hamilton didn't spill on who might be getting merked by Xal'atath—which is fair enough.

Still, it's a big promise, given that The War Within opened with the fakeout death of Khadgar. Knowing that Blizzard isn't always going to be handling its cast with mittens is a relief. Hazzikostas also says the team's planning on getting around to some of those old plot points, like the giant bloody sword stabbed into Azeroth that hasn't really been touched on since Sargeras put it there in Legion.

"Sometimes Chekhov’s Gun, or Chekhov’s Sword as the case may be," says Hazzikostas, "Is going to lie there for a couple of expansions before something comes of it. Get used to that." When are we going to talk about the sword, Ion? I've been dying to talk about the sword.

You can read the full story in issue 420 of PC Gamer, which goes on sale Thursday, January 29.