Blizzard has commented on the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Old Soldier cinematic release timing and the Zekhan ‘Zappyboi’ script.

　　The new Battle for Azeroth ‘Old Soldier’ cinematic featuring Saurfang and troll Shaman “Zappyboi” was released last week following the events of the Sylvanas cinematic, in which the Banshee burns down the Teldrassil world tree.

　　The latter shocked the WoW community and many fans weren’t too happy with the Horde Warchief burning down the Night Elf world tree. In case you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, we’ve included both cinematics down below:

　　The Old Soldier cinematic sparked hope for World of Warcraft lore lovers, and some believed that Blizzard released the cinematic in advance following community backlash over the Sylvanas cinematic. According to Blizzard however, this wasn’t the case as the trailer was supposed to be released months ago.

　　“We had planned for it to be debuted at Chinajoy months ago (hence why it was late at night in the US), long before you guys ever knew Warbringers were even a thing. ;)”, community manager ‘Ythisens’ wrote on the official WoW forums.

　　The community manager also had something to say about the script for Troll Shaman ‘Zappyboi’ Zekhan. Apparently, no one at Blizzard expected that Zekhan would become that popular among WoW Players.

　　"I won't tell you who said it internally but someone in leadership at some point did say "Let the Zappi boi memes flow", Ythisens’ wrote.

　　"So for a serious answer, no. I don't think anyone expected the Zappi Boi thing. In fact when we told people that Zappi Boi posts were the new hotness right after the announcement they were a little confused, "Zappi what?, really?, alright then why not?" I believe was the first response. Nobody expected him to be named that's for sure."

　　The community managed continued, "This game has had so many weird memed things before we even used "meme" as a word in this way, so nobody didn't not get it at least. As for the timeline, yes the Saurfang cinematic was being created before you guys ever saw the Battle for Lordaeron cinematic, so we truly had no way to predict it. Just luck? If you want to call it that."

　　Battle for Azeroth, World of Warcraft's seventh expansion will release next week on August 14.