It’s a storytelling tool best used sparingly, but these writers constantly misuse it to retcon the player’s knowledge.
Overusing unreliable narrators makes the reader lose trust in your characters and storytelling. They begin to catch on to the fact that every piece of information they learn can be changed at the whim of the writer. This has been going on at an alarming rate since Shadowlands. Please stop it.
When the player learns something about your world, they should be rewarded for being attentive with interesting story revelations and opportunities for speculation. Instead, we are left guessing blindly what crazy twist you’ll pull for the sake of marketing, shock value and pushing a specific expansion theme.
This is not to say old lore is better, or that your writers suck. But if you want to continue to tell warcraft stories, you should respect its integrity. If you want to experiment and write new stories, make another IP
Rant over, please take a creative writing undergrad course or something
Tbh its not even that for me but they use it wrong. You know elder scrolls universe is also known for using it and amgic lorr is QUITE free, but barest bones of the universe are set and known at least. Though each nation has their own flavor each tend to touch on similar concepts. Theres no and forgive me for bringing it up: chronicles were titans perspective.
I think unreliable narrators, or even biased narrators can work great. One example would be old Warhammer Fantasy stories. But, it has to be clear from the start, whatever is represented or told, is through the lens of a character in universe.
Back peddling and just declaring a novel later on as from a unreliable narrator is simply bad practice and terrible for story telling in my view. That’s just me.
Of course having clear descriptions about the world, cultures, history etc. are great to have and I love it.
Both can work great and work in the same universe and story telling, but it has to be clear what is a straight up description, or what comes from a unreliable narrator. Which shouldn’t be difficult to balance.
Edit: Obviously the WoW team is not following this distinction and is chaining a lot. Chronicles and the unreliable Titan perspective is the best example.
No idea where this story telling can go. In my view the world building has sto stay consistent.
It gives the feeling that no story is really solid or clear cut nowadays. There’s always that lingering feeling, or fear if one is inclined, that this piece of information WILL be written out and/or removed in the future.