Chris Metzen explains the roots from where the Warcraft Chronicle series come and its purpose in the great design the series serve. The first volume will focus on the early history of Warcraft before World of Warcraft existed up to Warcraft: The Last Guardian.

That in itself meshes pretty well with the Warcraft Movie which is based presicely in the events of the first Warcraft video game, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (1994). The WarCraft: The Last Guardian novel (by Jeff Grubb) was based in a mission of the first video game where you are tasked to kill Medivh, and fleshed out a whole new perspective to the how the orcs came to be in Azeroth and expanded the lore into what we now know as World of Warcraft.

Transcript

Metzen: You know, people often asks: “Why is lore important?” The lore … the storytelling of Warcraft is something that we’ve really tried to work on and hone over the years as an integral part of the fantasy you are playing through.

When it catches you, it is something that you want to keep coming back over and over.

Warcraft Chronicle is the first in a series of books that attempts to codify and tighten up, and clarify the history of Warcraft.

The first volume of the Chronicle essentially goes from the creation of the Warcraft universe, all the way up until the story of “The Last Guardian,” which is essentially the story of Warcraft 1.

We wanted to create a very distinct look to this book. We asked one of our artists, Peter Lee, if he would step up and do this thing. A lot of the imagery is fashioned on the early parts of the history… or the pre-history of Warcraft. Images of places and things that we have never shown people before; and Pete was just the perfect guy that kinda envisioned these vistas, these landscapes.

What is really fun about doing the Chronicle project is trying to take that holistic audit of like our first ideas, all the way to the now. You can read through this thing and go: “Oh, I get it. I get how this begot this and then this came from here, and this turn in history happened because of these three things. I never saw that before.”

In having that top-down long view of the history of Azeroth, you definitely get that sense that there is a lot of unfinished business, there is a lot of conflicts and evil stirred in the ancient world that may yet come to pass in Warcraft’s future.

Pre-Order Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1

Normal price: $39.99. However, you can pre-order for only $20.94.

Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 TeaserWorld of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 is a journey through an age of myth and legend, a time long before the Horde and the Alliance came to be. This definitive tome of Warcraft history reveals untold stories about the birth of the cosmos, the rise of ancient empires, and the forces that shaped the world of Azeroth and its people.

This beautiful hardcover book features over twenty full-page illustrations by World of Warcraft artist Peter Lee and marks the first in a multipart series exploring the Warcraft universe; from the distant past to the modern era.

  • Featuring over twenty full-page illustrations by fan favorite Peter Lee!
  • Must-read companion to the Warcraft series.
  • Never-before-revealed secrets of the Warcraft universe!

Writer: Matt Burns
Artist: Peter Lee, Joseph Lacroix

Series: World of Warcraft
Hardcover: 1 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse Books (March 15, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616558458
ISBN-13: 978-1616558451