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World of Warcraft’s Horde capital of Orgrimmar is one of the most iconic virtual spaces (alongside the Alliance’s Stormwind) in gaming, where players congregate to shop and socialize before heading out on their next big adventure in Blizzard’s MMORPG. Seeing Orgrimmar built using Unreal Engine 5, however, is like seeing the city again for the very first time.
WoW is nearly two decades old at this point, and while Blizzard’s flagship game can still impress visually thanks to its signature art style, all it takes is seeing one of the game’s environments brought to life in a more modern game engine to realize how far in-game graphics have come since 2004. This particular fan project comes from creator Axcel, who has put together a demo of what a more modern version of WoW might look like, complete with an over-the-shoulder camera perspective, the ability to sprint and slide, and, of course, some truly impressive visuals.
While this particular video is restricted to the gates of Orgrimmar, some of the surrounding area, and a brief glimpse at the city’s interior, Axcel has shown more of what Orgrimmar’s city center might look like using Unreal Engine 5 in a separate video.
The results speak for themselves. Fans in the comments of Axcel’s video have expressed how they would love for a WoW sequel to adopt a similar style to what’s seen in the videos, or even for Blizzard to make a single-player action-RPG that resembles Axcel’s work. And Axcel isn’t the only one who’s dreamt of what Azeroth might look like using Unreal Engine. Another recent fan creation from Lightdreams Foto & Video shows Stormwind remade in Unreal Engine 4.
Blizzard is set to announce what’s next for WoW with a new expansion reveal on April 19. Unreal Engine creator Epic Games recently spotlighted a number of upcoming games that will be using Unreal Engine 5, including the new entries in both the Tomb Raider and Witcher series.
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