Game story · Azeroth

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

The Dark Portal reopens and Azeroth's factions enter Outland, where Illidan's rule, the Legion and the world's surviving peoples compete across a shattered Draenor.

2007Outland campaignCanon status: Fixed main story

What happens in the game

Blood elves and draenei join the playable factions with histories rooted in magical loss and exile.

The campaign confronts Illidan's lieutenants and later the Legion at the Sunwell, showing that Outland's apparent tyrant is also preparing for a cosmic enemy.

The story, step by step

  1. Through the Dark Portal

    The reopened portal takes both factions to Outland, the remains of Draenor. Hellfire Peninsula and the shattered zones show the physical result of demonic corruption and reckless portal magic.

  2. Illidan's dominion

    Campaigns against Kael'thas, Lady Vashj and Illidan frame the Black Temple as the center of regional oppression. Later context complicates Illidan's motives, but the suffering caused by his lieutenants remains part of the record.

  3. The Sunwell

    Kael'thas returns in service to Kil'jaeden and attempts to use the restored Sunwell as a Legion gateway. Blood elf and draenei histories converge as the invasion is stopped and the Sunwell is renewed with transformed power.

What the story is really about

Survival can reproduce exploitation

Characters responding to magical deprivation and cosmic war repeatedly make other peoples pay for their continued existence.

A shattered homeland retains memory

Outland is not an empty alien frontier; every zone is layered with Draenor's cultures and the consequences of its destruction.

How it ends

Kil'jaeden's attempt to enter through the Sunwell is stopped and the font is renewed, while Illidan's defeat leaves his methods to be reconsidered during Legion.

What changes afterward

  • Outland ties orc, draenei, blood elf and Legion history together.
  • The Sunwell's renewal changes the blood elves' relationship to magic.

How it connects forward

Wrath of the Lich King returns the war to Azeroth's north and the source of the Scourge.

Places in this game

Characters in this game

Sources:

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