Warcraft III: Reforged

Warcraft III: Reforged is the much-hyped remake of the iconic RTS game. The base game is worth checking out if you're new to the series, but developer Blizzard released Reforged with fewer features than the original game.

I brought up “the old Blizzard” in this review because this is the first time in a while (yes, even counting Diablo III at launch) that you can really sense a huge shift at the company in just about every sense. Warcraft III: Reforged is both the beginning and end of an era. It works to a degree thanks to the immense talent of the original Warcraft III creators and custom map fiends, but it doesn’t quite feel like Blizzard, does it.

Ultimately that makes reviewing Reforged rather tricky. The actual core game remains absolutely brilliant. And since this is now the only way to experience Warcraft 3 I find myself wanting to recommend it to anyone who has never played the game before. Warcraft 3 helped launch entire new genres, set the stage for World of Warcraft and was an excellent RTS in its own right. It deserves to be played. It did not, however, deserve this remake/remaster/reforging or whatever this is meant to be.

Warcraft 3 is still probably my favorite Warcraft game of all time, and one of my favorite fantasy stories in any video game. The visual update Reforged brings to all its beloved and behated characters is all the reason I needed to want to experience it again. It’s not perfect, and it’s not everything we may have been promised, but it’s still Warcraft 3. If I were judging it purely based on how good of a remaster it is, there’s not much to write home about and plenty of room for improvement.

Warcraft III: Reforged teaches the harsh lesson that sacred, legendary titles need to be revisited with only the utmost care. Core elements that made the original an absolute Earth-shaker still remain, but as a remaster meant to enhance the original experience, Reforged is greatly flawed.

While some will bemoan the lack of work that has gone into remaking Warcraft III, hardcore fans may prefer a largely unchanged version of the game. It does everything you’d expect from a remaster though Blizzard could certainly have been more ambitious in experimenting with one of its most beloved titles. Either that, or they should have better communicated exactly what Reforged was from the start.

If you're just interested in the campaigns, which tends to be the case with the majority of RTS players, then you'll probably be more content with what Blizzard has released, even though you'll definitely still encounter some rough edges. This isn't anything like a comeback, however, and with the rough launch and the community seeming to turn against Blizzard after it very quietly walked back improvements, I'm not at all confident about its future.

An inexplicably careless remaster, where none of the changes are unequivocally for the better and the experience is brought down further by numerous bugs and missing features.