So, Sebastian Stępień has been hired by Blizzard Entertainment for a month.
This guys notable projects involve Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077.
So…good or nah? It’s speculated that he could help develop a more mature narrative.
Or that he could influence specific stories such as Mechagon (given his role in Cyberpunk 2077, this seems rather likely).
Opinions?
A diamond in the rough at best. He could be good, he could be awesome, but then we have the current storywriting team that might make some exaggerations/alterations for some odd reason.
I’m not holding out for hope.
WoW storywriting is beyond expecting great things. It needs a surprise and consistency that will be so amazing that we’re flying.
I wouldn’t hold you breath. Keep your expectations at rock bottom, then you’ll be either pleasantly surprised or barely disappointed.
At best, he will write the lore for a new IP. At worst, he will write the lore for Diablo: Immortal. But I don’t see him writing World of Warcraft because this game has such silly, uninspired, and unconvincing lore.
I really don’t think he’ll write for WoW/Warcraft. Blizzard seems to be fairly content with their story, even praising themselves and comparing them to legendary titles such as Game of Thrones. they also hired Golden rather recently. I don’t know why they’ll hire someone else again.
I mean… here’s for hoping, but uh…
If he indeed ends up working for WoW, and even if the overall story arch is still heavily influenced by the rest of the writing team (at this point i’d assume they have the whole story wrapped up), he could still leave his imprint in the narrative.
Kind of like Danuser did with Nathanos when Blizzard came knocking for a character to act as Horde general to push the war story forward.
Or Golden, when she pushed for certain portrayals regarding her favourites (Jaina, Anduin and Baine).
Yes, the story itself might remain as it currently is, but people like these often end up influencing more the “micro-plots” and the way certain settings are shown.
If the guy that helped with the setting of Cyberpunk, made it half as good for the Mecha-gnomes, i’d still be happy.
And if his Witcher creativeness seeps into, lets say, a future plot regarding what’s going on with the Forsaken and Lordaeron, and helps to make a more crude approach regarding certain war settings, then again, i’d be happy.
And yes, there is a lot of wishful thinking. To the point i’m tending to agree with this:
But…i want to believe.
You underestimate the influence of Activision, Zarao!
Activision was already in charge of Blizzard during WotLk…
Doubt the narrative mistakes are their fault. Unless you consider all the lore that happened since, as bad as this one.
EA once used to be a great company, producing excellent shooters and RTS/sports games. Decline is inevitable.
well, the writers are only human. And humans make mistakes.
That’s the cheapest excuse in the world.
You are only human, Arctur! How does that feel?
no. no please don’t start that again.
At least I can wear a helm if I wanted to because I don’t have long ugly trash ears and plastic eyebrows that clip through everything. Oh, and by the way, you stink of ash. Leave.
You are simply jelly of our glorious purple skin and pointy ears. ^^
Teldrassil was but one World Tree. It can be replaced.
don’t worry - once “operation: lava-wind” kicks off in earnest, EVERYONE will stink of ash!
Doubt he’s here to replace Afrasiabi, he’s probably going to work on Diablo or, god forbid, something like Overwatch/Heroes/Hearthstone.
Probably going to be used on their infernal mobile games. Or if used in WoW, he’ll suffer the same fate as any developer under blizzard; a complete overrun by ActivisionBlizzard on what he can and can’t do.
If he took part in the creation of Witcher, then I would love him to work on Warcraft related things.
But, as someone mentioned above, WoW developers seem extremely proud of their “story” and are absolutely blind to the feedback. I am afraid they think their “story” is sooooo good that they need no help.
I like the Warcraft story. The notion that it’s crap writing because it fails to live up to an individual’s self-made standards, that’s rather subjective I would say.
Anyway, good luck to the new guy I guess! 
My impression of story writing at Blizzard is that it’s a team effort like everything else. Creative Directors are usually firmly tied to a single project though. For WoW it’s Alex Afrasiabi I believe. Who knows where new guy ends up, but Blizzard seemingly has lots of projects in the works.