World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth expansion is set to arrive this August 14th, bringing with it a renewed focus on the war between the Horde and the Alliance. In order to get everyone up to speed, as well as flesh out some of the main characters, Blizzard has recently started releasing "Warbrigers" animated shorts. The first of these was Warbringers: Jaina, a surprisingly well done portrayal of Jaina's internal conflicts and her current motivation in the war against the Horde.

The second video, Warbringers: Sylvanas, has arrived today, and unfortunately it's nowhere near the same level of quality. But before I potentially taint your opinion with my own, allow me to share with you the video itself. Have a look, it's only a couple of minutes long:

After watching that I think it's fairly easy to see why I and so many other WoW players have a massive issue with how the Horde is being portrayed in Battle for Azeroth. Instead of the "morally grey" that was promised in earlier interviews, the new Horde seems to be a bunch of cartoonish villains that are more than willing to kill civilians despite the whole "blood and honor" mantra.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the Horde being evil, but if Blizzard wants to go down that route they need to fully commit to it. We can't have these types of situations where 1/2 of the Horde would immediately break apart because Slyvanas' actions go against their very ideals, while the rest would begrudgingly follow her and grumble about a lack of honor all the way through. If the Alliance did something terrible I could understand the Horde rallying under a single banner to save their very lives, but as is tradition the Alliance are portrayed as a paragon of virtue and justice, so the whole conflict seems even more forced.

It just feels like an extremely lazy way of driving the conflict, and one that doesn't really instill the Horde with any sort of faction pride, something that Blizzard has been focusing on since Battle for Azeroth was first announced. I can only hope Sylvanas will get more fleshed out in Battle for Azeroth because as someone that has played Horde since the very beginning, I am not a fan of having yet another Garrosh-style leader being forced upon us!