Arthas Menethil
character in Warcraft
Arthas Menethil is a fictional character who appears in the Warcraft series of video games and novels by Blizzard Entertainment. He was once a paladin of the Silver Hand and the crown prince of Lordaeron, but he turned to evil during a fight to save his people. He later became the Lich King, one of the most prominent antagonists in Warcraft lore. The critical reception of the character has been mostly positive.
In Warcraft III, Arthas is voiced by Justin Gross. In subsequent appearances, he is voiced by Patrick Seitz (as Arthas) and Michael McConnohie (as the Lich King).
Development
According to Warcraft game designers Scott Mercer and Greg Street, "early on in the development of Warcraft III, we knew the game would be about heroes leading their armies into battle. We initially created Arthas as one of those leaders, so we knew from the beginning he would be central to the storyline", and that he "is the bridge connecting the human and the undead campaigns."
Regarding the development of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Mercer stated that "when development began on Wrath of the Lich King, we knew we wanted the players to have a more personal connection with the Lich King ... so we started designing quests and instances in which we could show the Lich King to the players." Developers also designed the game so that "players can see the wrecks of the Alliance ships that Arthas set ablaze ... they can also find the altar upon which Arthas first discovered Frostmourne ...
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This entry incorporates text from “Arthas Menethil” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.