168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World of Warcraft is a decades-old franchise with enough lore to drown an elephant in paper. The Warcraft timeline is also notoriously complicated, with novels that jump across his🐈tory, mangas that show potential fut൲ures, alternate timelines popping up in the expansions, and more. Here, we cover every piece of Warcraft content and its place in that long timeline.
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This list details every game, expansion, and novel released as of the time of this writing. If the title is noted with either a (past), (present), or (future), it appears more than once on the list and jumps around through the timeline. The Chron💦icles books, which were written to help fill in gaps in the timeline and tighten up the history of the world, are not included because of this variable nature; they provide details throughout the timeline.
Years -13,000 to 0
- World of Warcraft: Rise of the Horde (book) (past)
- World of Warcraft: Dawn of the Aspects Parts I-V (book) (past)
- Warcraft: War of the Ancients (book trilogy) (past)
- The Last Guardian (short story in Warcraft Archive (book)) (past)
- World of Warcraft: War Crimes (book) (past)
Only a few stories are written before year 0, which is when the First War (between orc🐻s and humans) began. There are thousands of years of history bef🌱ore this point, much of which is explored in in-game content throughout the Warcraft video games. All the novels written about this era also have a foot in the distant future, whether characters are time-traveling to the past or reliving it in some way.
Years 0 to 3
- Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (game)
- The Last Guardian (short story in Warcraft Archive (book)) (present)
The first few years of history are full of grief. The first hints of the w🅠ar between humans and orcs occur when the Horde passes through the Dark Portal from Draenor and begin to attack humans living in Azeroth. Slowly, the Horde is ordered to push into human territories and burn down villages 🌺as they go.
This began the First War and the first Warcraft game: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The First War en🌞ded when the Horde attacked the city of Stormwind and it fell, forcing the human🐈 forces to flee north.
Years 4 to 10
- Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (game)
- World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness (book)
- World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (book) (years 3 to 27)
- Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (game)
- Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition (game)
- Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Beyond the Dark Portal (book)
- The Last Guardian (short story in Warcraft Archive (book)) (future)
- Day of the Dragon (short story in Warcraft Archive (book))
The Second War begins in year 4 when Stormwind's refugees successfully flee and the Horde begins plans to follow them. The second Warcraft game, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, follows these evꦚents (a♋nd the book of the same name describes them in more detail).
The Alliance, an organization that fans of the games will be familiar with, is formed when human leaders from Stormwind attempt to rally all the hum🧸an empires under one flag to combat the Horde.
Years 15 to 18
- Of Blood And Honor (short story in Warcraft Archive (book))
- Lord of the Clans (short story in Warcraft Archive (book))
- World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (book) (years 3 to 27)
The Alliance finds success against the Horde after years of horrible battling. That's not to say it went over easily — leadership fell in battle and had to be turned over into new hands, huge swaths of the human kingdoms had been destroyed, and more people were🐎 dead than ever before in their histor𒊎y.
During this time the human prince, Arthas, has become a very capable paladin (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:not to mention a dreamboat) and has joined an order of holy warriors called the Ordꦍer of the Kni🗹ghts of the Silver Hand.
Years 20 to 22
- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (game)
- World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (book) (years 3 to 27)
- Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Illidan (book) (years 20 to 26)
The Second War ended in 18 but was shortly followed by the T🐠hird War. It begins in 20 when a young orc named Thrall has a vision and begins to lead the Horde.
At the same time, Prince Arthas investigates a plague spreading across🍸 the human lands and discovers that it is being caused by the Undead in order to create more warriors for their army. Arthas manages to find a sword powerful enough to beat the Undead leader, Mal'Ganis, but at a grave cost. and turns 😼him against his own allies.
With Arthas turnedꦯ against humanity, Jaina 🐎Proudmoore (an apprentice-Archmage) is leading the human survivors of the plague. She's forced to ally with Thrall and the night elves against the Burning Legion, the army of demons that Arthas is attempting to bring forth.
Years 24 to 25
- World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred (book)
- World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (book) (years 3 to 27)
- World of Warcraft/168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World of Warcraft Classic (game)
- Warcraft: War of the Ancients (book trilogy) (present)
- World of Warcraft: Illidan (book) (years 20 to 26)
World of Warcraft, the famous MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game), picks up in the year 25. The book World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred serves to fill♐ in the gap between the end of Warcraft III and the beginning of the MMO.
There are lots of things going on in the background during this time, festering and getting close to bubbling over — Arthas as the Lich King, Illidan as an escaped night-el𒊎f, and more. At this point, players of the MMORPG only had access to the continent of Azeroth and were being introduced to the game's lore through a variety of quests, dungeons, and patches.
Years 26 to 27
- World of Warcraft: Illidan (book) (years 20 to 26)
- World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Rise of the Horde (book) (present)
- World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (book) (years 3 to 27)
- World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Night of the Dragon (book)
- World of Warcraft: Stormrage (book)
Both of World of Warcraft's first expansions dealt with the⛎ repercussions of Wꦜarcraft III.
The Burning Crusade allowed players to explore the continent of Draenor (now known as the Outland) and followed the story of Illidan. Illidan was a character who featur💫ed heavily in the night elf plot of Warcraft III. but was released during Warcraft III so that Thꦗrall, Jaina, and the night elves would stand a chance against the Burning Legion. Afterward, he fled. The book World of Warcraft: Illidan explains what he was doing between Warcraft III and the start of the Burning Crusade expansion.
The other expansion that takes place in this time period was Wrath of the Lich King, which picks up with Arthas, now an inhuman Lich King wielding Frostmourne and wreaking destruction on the world. Like Illidan, Arthas has a novel (World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of 🔜the Lich King) that explains his activities between Warcraft III and the beginning of this expansion.
Years 28 to 30
- World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm (book)
- World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Wolfheart (book)
- World of Warcraft: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects (book)
- Warcraft: War of the Ancients (book trilogy) (future)
- World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War (book)
- World of Warcraft: Dawn of the Aspects Parts I-V (book) (present)
- World of Warcraft: Traveler (book)
- World of Warcraft: Traveler: The Spiral Path (book)
- World of Warcraft: Traveler: The Shining Blade (book)
- World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde (book)
You'd think the world would get a break after dealing with Illidan and Arthas. There's no such luck, however: a Dragon Aspect named Deathwing returns to Azeroth and destroys the land, which marks the start of the World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. There is almost a second cataclysm, but Thrall and other Dragon Aspects are able to defeat him in ༒29 and avert it.
Shortly after this event, the land of Pandaria is discovered — this was a new continent for players to explore in-game. With no huge enemy to threaten the world anymore, the story of the Mists of Pandar♋ia expansion for World of Warcraft focused back on the war between the Horde and the Alliance.
Years 31 to 32
- World of Warcraft: War Crimes (book) (present)
- World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Legion (game expansion)
The book in this timeline is a little hard to wrap the brain around, as it involves an alternate tim𓃲eline of Warcraft history. Regardless, it leads into the expansions Warlords of Draenor, in whic🔴h the Alliance is attacked by the 'Iron Horde' (the Horde from the parallel universe), and Legion, in which an orc from the alternate universe is sent into our universe so that he can open a portal and allow the Burning Legion through again.
Year 33
- World of Warcraft: Before The Storm (book)
- World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (game expansion)
- World of Warcraft: Shadows Rising (book)
- World of Warcraft: Shadowlands (game expansion)
The orc's plans are foiled and the Burning Legion is stopped, but the world is now licking its wounds. Even still, the Horde and the Alliance (again, now that there are no common enemies to fight) begin to fight again. This is played out in the Battle of Azeroth expansion fo🔴r World of Warcraft.
The most recent expansion to the game, Shadowlands, came out in 2020. A character who was involved in the Battle for Azeroth expansion, Sylvanas Windrunner, is said to have ripped a hole between the real world and the afterlife. In Shadowlands, players must help legendary charact🦂ers from Warcraft history journey back to the land of the living and put things right again.