.jpg "GitHub’s Dohmke exits as platform folds deeper into Microsoft’s CoreAI")
Oh no, the latest World of Warcraft patch has us teaming up with an evil cosmic void being who has tried to kill us many times already and will definitely stab us in the back later…but we’re all kind of okay with it? Partially because we have no choice but also because she’s hot and sarcastic?
I’m talking about Xal’atath. You know, this lady. Heads up, I’m going to talk in this article about spoilers for World of Warcraft: The War Within leading up to the events in Patch 11.2, Ghosts of K’aresh that dropped last Tuesday. If you haven’t started playing the patch yet and don’t want to know what’s happening, maybe don’t keep reading.
Even if you’re a lapsed World of Warcraft player, you might know this lady if you’ve dipped in as recently as World of Warcraft: Legion. Xal’atath first appeared in that expansion in the form of a dagger artifact weapon wielded by Shadow Priests, which would occasionally whisper creepy evil stuff to them about N’Zoth and the Old Gods and all that malarky. At the time, some folks grew rather fond of her unsettling whispers, even affectionately referring to her as “knaifu”. The dagger, with the rest of the expansion’s artifact weapons, was used to drain the corruption from the giant sword that Sargeras stuck in the planet at the end of the expansion. Normal stuff.
While we naively thought we wouldn’t hear from Xal’atath ever again, what was once one weapon among a giant stack of them turned out to be hugely plot-relevant. Xal’atath was passed around from place to place in the interim expansions, finally regaining her power and emerging from the dagger in the form of a void-infused high elf, all the better to corrupt people with. She bopped around Azeroth for a while, manipulating the underground giant bug people and some dragons before she finally made herself known as something called the “Harbinger of Dimensius,” basically a herald of a super powerful void lord bent on destroying reality. Again, normal stuff.
At the start of our current expansion, The War Within, Xal’atath appears to be the main villain. She opens the expansion by causing the destruction of Dalaran (again), and she’s responsible for the events that lead us to fighting both the Nerubians and the goblin Gallywix. She’s spent a lot of time popping up here and there and taunting our ally Alleria Windrunner, she nearly kills Khadgar, and she’s obsessed with this void artifact she’s been carrying around called the Dark Heart, which she keeps using to corrupt and empower and manipulate. All of this is to say, she seems pretty evil to me! She serves the void and is clearly very interested in destroying us, our buddies, and probably all of Azeroth! Nothing she has done so far seems good, at all!
And yet.
In patch 11.2, Xal’atath joins us. The short explanation is that she actually betrayed Dimensius in the past, but he’s coming back, and he’s probably pissed off at her. If he shows up, she’s done for. Out of a sense of self-preservation, she’s been trying to beef up the Dark Heart to stop his return rather than accelerate it, and was messing around with the Nerubians and the Goblins in an effort to get that done. But at the end of patch 11.1, she accidentally (and sort of stupidly) loses the Dark Heart, forcing her to team up with Alleria and the player as a back-up plan.
What this actually means, in practice, is that Xal’atath follows us around while questing and occasionally proposes we do things that sound horrible and dangerous, like turn ourselves into an energy being and fill someone with void energy so they can hear the planet sing to them (normal stuff!). But, you know, we can’t stop Dimensius without her. She knows his weaknesses, and is pretty much the only path to getting close enough to him to do something about his encroachment. So the murdery knife-elf gets to come along.
The thing is, Blizzard has done such a lovely job writing Xal’atath, and Claudia Christian does such a great job voicing her, that most players are…kind of enjoying her presence. The first few days of the new patch last week saw the community subreddit flooded with cheeky, obsessive posts about Xal’atath. Sure, she’s evil, but apart from being gorgeous, she’s also clever, funny, powerful, and dare I say, kind of sultry? Her banter with the player is almost flirtateous at times, referring to us again and again as “my champion”, while simultaneously reminding us that she could snuff us out on a whim. She spends a lot of time needling Alleria Windrunner and, as the ever-wise Ve’nari puts it, “floating around and making sarcastic remarks.” And irritatingly enough, she’s also correct a lot of the time about the behaviors and motivations of the other people who claim to be Alleria’s allies (looking at you, Locus-Walker) and the ways in which they aren’t exactly behaving righteously, either.
Love for Xal’atath has reached such a point that someone even made a mod (add-on) for World of Warcraft that has Xal’atath whisper praise to the player every time they exit a combat scenario…though notably in these messages, Xal’atath refers to herself as “mommy”. So download that at your own risk, I guess.
Still, this lady is definitely going to turn on us. And while plenty of players are enjoying the twist of her temporary allegiance and the opportunity to get to know her a little better, others are (rightfully!) recognizing that Xal’atath is definitely a hot mess we’re going to regret partying with sooner or later:
It’s an interesting move by Blizzard to build Xal’atath up for, technically, five expansions, introduce her as the seemingly big bad of this one, only to form an alliance of convenience in the final act of The War Within with the promise that she’s definitely going to keep on being evil in future expansions. With Xal’atath’s dark and void theming, it seems likely she might play a major role in the next expansion, Midnight, which will be fully revealed at Gamescom in just a few weeks. The long game Blizzard’s playing here is especially potent given that some of its other storylines that similar took several expansions of setup did not go over so well, such as whatever was going on with Sylvanas and the Jailer.
Anyway, trust Knaifu at your own risk, and enjoy her while you can. Manaforge Omega, the new raid, opens tomorrow and will bring with it another chapter of The War Within’s story as we inch closer to the Midnight reveal and what I can only assume is Xal’atath’s inevitable re-betrayal.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
