WoW Dragonflight launch cinematic shows off Dragonriding, Raszageth, Alexstrasza, and more

Blizzard unveiled the launch cinematic for World of Warcraft Dragonflight today, and along with showing off some of the game’s upcoming features, it included some notable faces of both friends and foes.

The cinematic begins with a member of the Horde and a member of the Alliance flying together on red and blue dragons respectively. From the Horde, there is a Zandalari Troll, and from the Alliance, a Wildhammer Dwarf soars through the sky.

“We knew from the get-go that we wanted a Horde and Alliance to fly together,” WoW cinematic director Anna Morgan said during a pre-launch stream on the official WoW Twitch channel. “It’s kind of a little bit of playfulness between them. Youth and experience, heart and head.”

The video is just less than three minutes long and includes an abundance of dragons, as one might expect, but along with seeing some fun interactions, the two dragonriders encounter one of the prime enemies of the game’s new race. The primalist Raszageth, the Storm Eater is one of the main antagonists of the Dracthyr, and the cinematic makes sure to portray how enormous the foe is.

“She is a dragon unlike anything we’ve ever seen, that elemental power that she has,” she said. “When we were making her in the cinematic, she’s huge, and we wanted to show that scale.”

After escaping the clutches of Raszageth, the protagonists make it back to clear skies where they see her antithesis in the form of one of WoW’s all-time most beloved characters, Alexstrasza, in her dragon form flying with them in the clouds.

“She’s a beloved character in WoW,” she said. “In this cinematic, we thought it was super important to show who she is, right? To me, she’s grace, she’s regalness. She has an ancient wisdom to her, but also when she breathes fire, it’s not destruction, it’s renewal, it’s regrowth.”

The cinematic comes the same day as phase two of the pre-patch for the upcoming expansion that is set to release at the end of the month. Along with a pre-patch event unlocking this evening, players who have pre-purchased the expansion will be able to create their own Dracthyr Evoker characters once servers go live after maintenance.