[learc83]

I grew up on Warcraft 2, and to me the cartoonish look of WoW was a direct continuation of the art style from that game. I was in the WoW beta. The first time I played it my initial reaction was that it looked exactly like I had stepped into Warcraft.

[emptysongglass]

I see your point with Warcraft 2 though I do think a lot of the art from then leant more to the gritty like this one [1] that shows a troll squaring off with a human.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/pJ0entX_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&...

[learc83]

The game manuals always were pretty gritty compared to the in-game art.

[astrange]

I remember looking at this in the manual as a kid and thinking the archer was about to have a bad time.

[tremon]

shows a troll squaring off with a human

An elf, rather (elven archer).

[pvg]

I think initial development/prototyping was done as an offshoot of the WC3 engine so in a sense you were stepping into Warcraft. That's not to take anything away from the great design and art direction consistency between these titles - just that it also had a practical technical component.