Blizzard have announced Warcraft 3: Reforged, which is a refreshed version of Warcraft 3. Simply calling it a remaster would not do the project justice, as it brings new models, textures, SFX, VFX and animations all in one package.
Blizzard seem to have a major hit coming in 2019, but instead of it being a new game, it will be an overhaul of Warcraft 3, which paved the way for the franchise's massive success. Even though Warcraft 3 is 26 years old, many fans still play it to this day and now they will no longer have to deal with the blocky graphics anymore.
Warcraft 3 Reforged has upgraded models, animations, visual and sound effects as well as textures, supporting resolutions up to 4K. Cutscenes have been reworked as well and according to the official website, there will be a total of four hours of them. Cherry on top, the cutscenes have characters with facial animations.
Voice actors are either the same or different actors that sound a lot like the ones in Warcraft 3. This is the most evident in The Culling campaign trailer, seen below, since Jaina sounds nearly identical to what she did in the original game. It is quite easy to hear that it's not Laura Bailey.
As far as gameplay goes, Reforged's states that heroes and regular units have been rebalanced in order to appeal more to the "modern age", but hopefully they will retain enough of the original charm in order to start the nostalgia engine.
Probably the most interesting feature of Warcraft 3 Reforged will be what Blizzard touts as "Limitless custom games". If this holds up to be true, it would mean all the classic game modes made by fans in the old map editor could be made anew.
Things such as tower defense could make a comeback in pretty new robe, but there is also that humble genre that was originally spawned in Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne's map editor - MOBA. Who wouldn't love to see DotA once again? Sadly, it will not have the original developers as Guinsoo now works for Riot Games and IceFrog is working on Dota 2 with Valve.
Warcraft 3 Reforged will cost $29,99 / €29,99 / £26,99 and players can already pre-order it. While it looks like a fantastic dip back into the good old days, we will always caution you to avoid pre-orders and any sort of purchases until you are sure the game will be worth it.
