Warcraft III: Reforged is finally here, the long wait is over! Players from around the world surged to pay their favorite RTS game and their reaction was a resounding... ehh.
Naturally, fans wanted to visit the good old Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne campaigns, see their favorite heroes with updated graphics. After all, everything Blizzard had been advertising to us since BlizzCon 2018 has looked stunning. So, what did we get instead?
Not as pretty
The most important thing in a remaster is the graphics. That’s why it’s a remaster, right? Warcraft III: Reforged screenshots and cinematics have been making the rounds on the official Blizzard webpages. Details were polished to perfection, and we were primed to receive that high-quality Blizzard game feel. What we got was... less than ideal.
Here is how dwellings look like on the official Warcraft III: Reforged webpage:
Now, the resolution certainly has a play in this, but you can’t say this is the same level of polish:
But raising the resolution didn’t improve things by much. The issue of grass coloration kept popping up on the forums as irate players compared it to the lime green colors from MS Paint. Mostly, it was eye-gougingly bright, often unnaturally so. Here is another shot of the grass, this time taken at maximum resolution:
And it’s not just the colors. Many users are reporting that animations on some units are now missing entirely from the release version. Where a minion once had two or three different attack animations, now it had only one.
Not to mention, Blizzard’s famous bone-chilling cinematics have been replaced by clunky, disjointed editing that appears more fan-made than anything else:
Broken
Warcraft III: Reforged is achieving the dubious feat of breaking something that used to work decades ago. The remaster’s overflowing with bugs. So much so, that it would have sunk to the bottom of the sea if it launched like that during the days of the original Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Mac users are reporting that they can’t launch the game at all. Campaign save data is getting lost or falsely displays defeat. Upgraded units don’t abide by allied color mode rules. In summary, chaos reigns, but not in a good way. Blizzard has already issued a list of known issues, though when these will get resolved is as good a guess as any.
Verdict: You are not prepared!
Do you know what this looks like? It looks like Warcraft III: Reforged is unfinished. Still in beta. After quite a lot of development (assuming Blizzard started working on it after BlizzCon 2018), it is clear that the game couldn’t meet its deadlines. They simply didn’t have enough time to deliver the level of polish and detail they promised. And instead of delaying the launch, Activision/Blizzard opted to go for a timely but broken game.
Now, the nostalgia in many might be enough to compensate for this. And many streamers have shown that despite the bugs, the game is still fun to play. After all, Blizzard has already committed to a Warcraft III: Reforged esports tournament this year, so the game better work by then! But how does it line up as a first impression? As the Russian man said, not great, not terrible.
Ultimately, releasing a buggy, unfinished game is a blow to Blizzard’s reputation more than anything else. The company used to be a staple for well-made games, at least until they got acquired by Activision. And after a year of fans accusing them of going for cheap cash grabs on every occasion, the accusing crowd now has one more reason to grab their pitchforks. But hey, maybe they patch it soon, right?
