“He Was an Incurable Romantic”: The Boy Who Lived a Secret Life in World of Warcraft
In the documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a Norwegian couple shares the surprising and heartfelt story of their disabled son, Mats Steen, and his hidden life in the online game World of Warcraft—a world his parents knew little about until after his death.
A Life Beyond the Wheelchair
When Mats Steen passed away in 2014 at the age of 25 from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), his parents, Robert and Trude Steen, were shocked by the outpouring of grief from people across Europe. While they knew their son was an avid gamer, they had no idea that for nearly a decade, Mats had lived a vibrant second life in World of Warcraft, taking on the role of an avatar named Ibelin. His story is now told in the documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.
In the film, Mats Steen introduces his online world: “I leave this world, and I spend most of my time in a distant world called Azeroth,” he says. “In there, my chains are broken, and I can be whoever I want to be.” For Mats, who used a wheelchair for much of his life, World of Warcraft offered the chance to experience the freedom, social connections, and love he struggled to find in the physical world.
The Hidden Life of Ibelin
Mats’ parents had long assumed he lived a lonely, isolated existence due to his illness. Robert Steen reflected, “We believed that he lived a lonely and isolated life, without experiencing love or being important… until after his passing.” When they posted an announcement of Mats’s death on his gaming blog, they were flooded with messages from his online friends. These messages revealed the deep connections Mats had formed in the gaming world—friendships, shared experiences, and even love—shocking his parents and forever changing their understanding of his life.
Exploring a Digital Avatar’s Reality
Mats’s dual life was first explored by Norwegian broadcaster NRK in 2019, followed by a BBC article that inspired filmmaker Benjamin Ree to create the documentary. Ree reflects on how Mats’s story raises critical questions relevant today: “Can you form real friendships with people you’ve never met? Can you experience love online? How close can you get to someone you’ve only interacted with through text?”
The documentary uses a mix of VHS footage from the Steen family, voice-acted recitations of Mats’s blog Musings of Life, and animated scenes from World of Warcraft to bring Mats’s life to the screen. It also features interviews with Mats’s friends from the game, who share their memories of Ibelin, his in-game persona.
The film reveals that Mats’s online interactions were not just trivial gaming banter. His community, called Starlight, contributed 42,000 pages of conversation, giving Ree the raw material to piece together Mats’s emotional journey as Ibelin. Ree describes it as “like a film script that’s 42,000 pages long,” capturing the complexities of Mats’s online life.
Ibelin: A Virtual Extension of Mats
Mats’s avatar, Ibelin, was named after Balian of Ibelin, a character from the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven, played by Orlando Bloom. In World of Warcraft, Ibelin is tall, strong, and noble—a stark contrast to Mats’s real-life physical limitations. As Ibelin, Mats was a heroic, charismatic figure who “fought evil” and formed lasting friendships. In the documentary, Ibelin introduces himself as “Ibelin Redmoore, famed detective and nobleman, who finds friends and fights evil wherever he goes.”
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Mats saw Ibelin as an “expansion of myself,” an idealized version of his true self. But Ibelin wasn’t just a superhero; his friends in the game describe him as a kind, supportive presence. One message from a fellow player reads, “He would always lighten the mood,” while another tribute says, “He was there for me, and I could talk to him about the stupid things.”
A Romantic at Heart
Beyond his in-game heroics, Ibelin was also a romantic. Mats’s online friends recall that he had a reputation as an “incurable romantic” who often had success with women in the game. In particular, Mats developed a close relationship with a player named Lisette, who played as the avatar Rumour. Their virtual bond grew into what seems to have been Mats’s greatest love story. In the documentary, Ibelin meets a “dark-haired, mysterious beauty” in the game, and their virtual kiss on the cheek becomes a poignant moment for Mats. “It was just a virtual kiss, but boy could I feel it,” Mats reflects in the film.
The documentary also introduces Xenia and her son Mikkel, who play online together as their avatars, Reike and Nikmik. Xenia shares how Mats’s mature advice helped her and her son improve their relationship, further highlighting the depth of Mats’s emotional presence in the online world.
A Life Unseen
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is a moving exploration of how an online game provided Mats Steen with a platform to experience the connection, love, and acceptance he yearned for. Through his virtual persona, he lived a full and rich life—one that, until his death, remained hidden from his parents. The film also touches on broader themes, such as the generational divide in the way people engage with technology and the evolving nature of friendships in the digital age.
For the Steen family, Mats’s death marked the beginning of a journey into discovering the depth of his virtual life. The documentary offers a touching reminder of how technology can provide meaningful connections, even when physical limitations or geographic distances stand in the way.
