Blizzard have gone and registered a trademark in Benelux for a bit of “computer game software” called Eye of Azshara.
We know we’re firmly in the WoW universe, since Azshara is the name of both an ancient elven queen and a zone Blizzard haven’t touched since Cataclysm. But are we in for the follow-up to Warlords of Draenor, or an expansion for Hearthstone?
Azshara was originally the name of the highborne elven queen who first used the Well of Eternity to summon Sargeras and the Burning Legion to Azeroth.
When the night elves decided they’d prefer that to stop, the well was destroyed – along with the single continent that constituted Azeroth at the time. The world was split into two, the Elven capital sunk into the ocean, and the Naga created.
An impossibly large storm raged afterward, and some players have speculated that this Maelstrom will provide the starting point for a new WoW expansion, with the queen as its villain.
There’s an alternate explanation, however. You can find a zone named Azshara in North Eastern Kalimdor, at the site of the old Elven capital – just above Orgrimmar on WoW’s map. The area was redesigned four years ago for the release of Cataclysm, and gained a large island in the centre of its bay: Bilgewater Harbor. Viewed from above, the bay looks like an eye.
The Habor has long been held by goblins, which matches up rather neatly with Hearthstone’s new goblinoid card back, released in the latest client patch.
The ARG thickens with the robot blueprints recently mailed to Hearthstone community members. In WoW lore, goblins are often linked to mechanical experimentation.
It only remains for us to remind you that this weekend is BlizzCon 2014. Would you prefer to see a cataclysmic post-Warlords expansion? Or more characters taken from WoW’s world and flattened into rectangles?