Four years have passed since the races banded together to protect the Well of Eternity from the power of the Burning Legion. The tenuous peace that once held all the hatred of the races at bay, has shattered. The lands of the world of Azeroth have once again become host to a World of Warcraft. With eight races, all vying for control of Azeroth.
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Blizzard couldn't resist bringing their favorite little WoW menace along for the ride. There's a giant murloc slurping a bowl of ramen in Hanamura, murloc plushies up for grabs in the arcade, and murloc graffiti tucked away at Temple of Anubis. None of it means anything, it's just Blizzard being Blizzard.
By the time World of Warcraft rolled around, Blizzard had turned the whole thing into a running gag across the company. Somewhere in Azeroth there's an item called Wirt's Third Leg, quietly keeping a decades-old Diablo joke alive in a completely different game.
Head to Thousand Needles in World of Warcraft and you can stumble into a Star Wars-style pod racing event in the Shimmering Flats. One of the racers is Diablo himself, and he does not look thrilled about being stuck in a go-kart instead of terrorizing Sanctuary.
That 2005 clip of a paladin charging into a room full of dragon whelps screaming his own name became one of gaming's first proper viral videos, and Blizzard leaned all the way into it. There's now an NPC called Leeroy Jenkins wandering Orgrimmar, plus an achievement that has you re-enact the whole disaster, complete with the 'at least I have chicken' payoff.
Blizzard spent years insisting 'there is no cow level,' a running joke going back to the original Diablo. For Diablo's 20th anniversary they finally caved, at least in WoW: killing a Treasure Goblin in the Broken Isles could pull you into a farmer's field crawling with axe-wielding cows and a boss called the Cow King, who'd hand out a toy guitar that plays Tristram's theme song.
Wander into Silvermoon City and you might bump into Kraes of Immersang, a troll NPC billed as a self-proclaimed prince. His flavour text piles on every over-the-top backstory cliché roleplay servers are famous for, right down to a throwaway line about fighting a personal war against a random player named Joshua Fuesting. It's Blizzard gently poking fun at its own community.
Loiter in the War Quarter of the Undercity and you'll find a small crowd of Forsaken standing around named Chloe Curthas, Tyler, Andrew Hartwell, Robert Gossom and a handful of others. Line the names up and it reads like a cast list for Fight Club, mixing character first names with the actors who played them in the film.
Tucked away at the Sepulcher in Silverpine Forest is a Forsaken innkeeper who goes by the name Bates. Given that the surrounding zone is dripping with gothic horror atmosphere already, it's hard to believe the Norman Bates nod running the local lodging is a coincidence.
Out in Azsuna there's a rare spawn called the Treacherous Stallions, two hostile unicorns standing guard over the corpse of a third. That dead unicorn is simply named Charlie, a direct wink at the cult animated short about a bedraggled unicorn dragged into disturbing adventures, and beating the pair actually rewards you with a kidney.
