The Remarkable Life of Ibelin isn’t the first Warcraft film, but it is definitely the best one. Duncan Jones’s big-budget Warcraft from 2016 focused on the “main” characters of developer Blizzard’s long-running sword-and-sorcery universe. This new Netflix documentary from director Benjamin Ree, released a month prior to World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary, instead puts its focus on WoW’s actual protagonists: the players who call Azeroth home. Specifically, it tells the story of Mats “Ibelin” Steen, and in the process paints an incredible portrait of a digital life, one that drives home a core message of how online friends and relationships built in virtual worlds have the power to be every bit as meaningful as ones made in the real world. While that thesis is hardly a revelation for anyone who has spent a significant amount of time playing WoW or online games in general over the past two decades, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin still manages to make a profound impact.
For about the first 20 minutes of the film’s 100-minute runtime, one might think they have an understanding of how The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is going to go. Old home movies show Steen as a baby and young boy in Norway, crawling, walking, and playing as young boys do. Soon, however, it’s discovered Steen has Duchenne’s disease, a rare form of muscular dystrophy that gets progressively worse over time. He is eventually restricted to using a wheelchair as his muscles grow weaker, and his ability to explore and interact with the outside world soon becomes more limited. He seeks solace in video games, as his parents grow concerned about the amount of time he is spending online.
Steen’s parents and family talk in interviews about his worsening condition, and their sorrow over how he is unable to live a normal life filled with love and friendship. They talk about how, before passing away at the age of 25 in 2014, Steen gave his parents the password to his computer. There they discover he had been writing and publishing a blog online about his life. After his parents publish one final entry to let Steen’s followers know he has passed away, they are flooded with emails from his online friends from all across Europe, people who largely knew him in Blizzard’s MMORPG by the name of Ibelin. Each email talks about how much of an impact Ibelin had on their lives and how much he will be missed, shocking Steen’s parents. They knew he played online with others but didn’t know the extent of their son’s digital life. One of Steen’s friends, the leader of a roleplaying guild called Starlight, reveals that much of Ibelin’s in-game encounters and conversations had been saved and transcribed on the guild’s online forums, where Steen was an active member and contributor.
The film then makes a dramatic turn, as it begins to recreate key moments from Steen’s in-game life based on over 42,000 pages of text conversations, character diaries, and in-game interactions saved as part of Starlight’s online archives. It transforms from a home video-style documentary broken up by interviews into what is largely an animated film set within the digital world of Azeroth, where Steen portrays himself as a dashing private investigator. It is a life filled with love, camaraderie, heartbreak, and guild drama, all animated in the style of an in-game WoW cinematic.
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I cried multiple times while watching The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. I expect many others will, too, especially those who have ever been a member of a tight-knit online community. The tears will likely flow not because it’s sad per se but rather because of how beautiful and relatable this story is. Millions of players (myself included) who grew up playing WoW or other MMORPGs will immediately identify with Steen’s online life, whether it’s having an online crush, making lifelong friends through a chance encounter, or all the interpersonal drama that sometimes comes from being a part of a passionate online community.
Though being a WoW or MMO player isn’t required to see the beauty or relevance of Ibelin’s story, WoW players in particular will enjoy seeing the familiar sights and sounds of Azeroth presented in a new way, whether it’s the “mrrgggrlll” of a Murloc in the distance or recognizing the exact piece of armor a character in the background is wearing. There’s always something fun to see and hear as Ibelin walks through the Alliance capital of Stormwind or travels along the road of Elwynn Forest. A few “overheard” conversations made in passing between Stormwind citizens made me laugh out loud.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’s in-game scenes are meticulously animated in a way that takes some liberties with how WoW player interactions actually work but still manages to feel authentic. In-game interactions and emotes are fully animated and brought to life, instead of the largely text-based versions used in actual WoW. It’s a smart approach, one that helps to capture the pivotal in-game moments from Ibelin’s life in a way that is true to how they were felt as opposed to how they literally transpired. It doesn’t show players typing on a keyboard, taking 30 seconds or more to choose their next in-character response (as is often the case in RP scenarios). One doesn’t reflect fondly on the in-game text emote that describes receiving a kiss from another player, after all, but rather the action itself. Ibelin in the film said even though a kiss from his online crush was virtual, he could “almost feel it.” The film does a great job of portraying these moments in a real and natural way so that those who haven’t played WoW or might not even be all that familiar with video games can still understand and relate to what’s happening.
Given the quality of the animation, one would assume it was done by Blizzard’s own in-game cinematic team, or at the very least with some assistance from them. That, however, wasn’t the case. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’s animated scenes are largely the work of Rasmus Tukia, an animator in WoW’s “machinima” community who has long used Blizzard’s world and character models to tell stories. It’s an incredibly impressive achievement. From the way characters run to how they hand each other flowers, it all feels true to Blizzard’s world in a way that can only come from Tukia having spent a significant amount of time within WoW themselves. Many of the film’s most dramatic and emotional moments happen in-game, and Tukia’s expressive animation brings those moments to life both with the care and the gravitas they deserve.
If The Remarkable Life of Ibelin does have one flaw, it’s that the film could perhaps use a little more explanation in regards to WoW as a game and its roleplaying community. Having played WoW for 20 years and dabbled in RP communities myself, the film’s extremely economical explanations as to what it means to “roleplay” in an MMORPG, or even what an MMORPG is, worked fine enough for me. However, for viewers who have never engaged in an “in character” RP conversation or played many online games, I feel like the film doesn’t always give the complete picture as a result of glossing over certain details.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’s expressive character models and on-point animation do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to getting viewers invested in Ibelin’s story, but sometimes at the expense of learning more about how Ibelin interacted with the game and those within it. One scene midway through the film shows Ibelin failing to help a group of players defeat a dragon, with the implication being that the progressive nature of his disease prevented him from being able to properly play his character as time went on. But without a viewer’s prior knowledge of how WoW is actually played, what players do in it, or more details on how Steen continued to play a complex and oftentimes demanding game while dealing with his worsening condition, the scene loses some of its impact.
Even for those who already know the positive impact online communities and interactions can have on our real world lives, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is still a documentary well-worth watching. While it does skim over some of the finer details about what actually being a part of said community entails, it is nonetheless a vivid rendition of a virtual life and a profound testament to the fact that just because a friendship, kiss, or an entire lifetime occurs online in a fantastical world, it doesn’t make it any less real.