Blizzard announced Warcraft III: Reforged just over a year ago, promising a 2019 release. Well, that’s not going to happen. However, we do have an official release date for the remastered game. It’s coming on January 28, 2020. It’s no Warcraft 4, but this classic game was due for a makeover.
Warcraft III launched in 2002, which was seven long years after Warcraft II. That seemed like an unreasonably long wait at the time, but 17 years later, and there’s still no Warcraft 4. Nevertheless, Warcraft III delivered major advances in the real-time strategy genre. It was the first game in the Warcraft series to use 3D rendering, and the modding scene gave rise to Defense of the Ancients (DotA). That was arguably the first online battle arena game, a category that now includes the likes of League of Legends and Arena of Valor.
With Warcraft III: Reforged, Blizzard has revamped the entire game. It will include all the content from the original game as well as the Frozen Throne expansion. That means seven different single-player campaigns with more than 60 individual missions. Everything will look nice and modern thanks to the updated graphics, too. Every unit model and environment has been recreated with support for 4K resolution. See below for an example of the before and after. Even the cutscenes (four hours of them) and voice-overs have been upgraded for the remaster.
Nearly 20 years of graphical improvements make a big difference.
In addition to the single-player game, Warcraft III: Reforged will have all the online components that made the original such an important part of gaming history. You’ll be able to play standard matches online, but there will also be player-created maps that reimagine Warcraft III as a tower defense, RPG, and yes, a MOBA. We’re really coming full circle here.
Blizzard is accepting pre-orders for the game, starting at $30 for the standard edition. The Spoils of War version is $10 more and comes with exclusive multiplayer skins. There are also bonuses for other Blizzard games like a Meat Wagon mount in WoW and new heroes in StarCraft II. Pre-ordering also gets you immediate access to the multiplayer beta. Blizzard doesn’t have minimum PC specs available just yet, but any reasonably powerful system should be able to run it. Pre-ordering also gets you a free copy of the classic game, and that should run just fine on any PC from the last two decades.
Now read:
- How an Article on Game Difficulty Explained My Own Modding, 18 Years Later
- World of Warcraft Classic vs. Retail, Part 1: Which Early Game Plays Better?
- You Can Now Play the Original Diablo in a Web Browser
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