Have you ever wondered how many developers worked on Warcraft over the years, or who stuck around from the very beginning?
Reddit user NostraDavid did, and what started as a simple curiosity turned into a massive project. By collecting credits from every Warcraft game, they created a series of amazing visualizations showing exactly who worked on each title, where roles overlapped, and how teams evolved over time.
(World of) Warcraft Credits Vizualization – who worked on what?
byu/NostraDavid inwow
The result? A fascinating look at how Warcraft’s development history grew from a small team to thousands of contributors today!
Warcraft 1 vs Warcraft 3: A Look at the Roots
On the left, you’ll see the 40 people who worked on Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. On the right, the team for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, which grew to around 320.
The cluster in the middle represents people who worked on both. Colors represent job roles, but exact roles may differ game to game.
From Warcraft 1 to World of Warcraft
The jump from Warcraft 1 to World of Warcraft shows just how much the franchise scaled.
Warcraft 1 vs WoW Dragonflight: Just 2 Remain!
By the time we reach Dragonflight, only two people remained from Warcraft 1.
- Glenn Stafford, a longtime Blizzard composer.
- Allan Adham, one of Blizzard’s co-founders who has floated in and out over the years.
Surprisingly, Metzen doesn’t appear in the shared cluster, possibly because his voice acting contributions are not reflected in the same credit data, Still, this chart result is incredible: 50 people on the left representing Warcraft 1 vs 6,220 on the right representing Dragonflight.
Warcraft 3 vs World of Warcraft
The following visualization shows the period when the franchise transitioned to a live MMO.
Warcraft 3 vs WoW Dragonflight
Look at the massive shift from Warcraft 3 to Dragonflight.
Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos vs Frozen Throne
Shadowlands vs Dragonflight
Finally, here’s a visualization of how many people worked on Shadowlands compared to Dragonflight. The people in the middle are mostly voice actors.
If you love playing around with data, definitely check out NostraDavid’s Warcraft Credit Visualizer!
