This Wednesday, January 29, came the time for players to (re) discover the famous story that preceded that of World of warcraft by diving into Warcraft III: Reforged.
This happy ending comes after months of silence from Blizzard, a postponement and an unsafe closed beta.
Warcraft III: Reforged, a great game and its extension brought up to date
Since midnight on January 28, the most impatient can (again) set foot on the lands of Azeroth in Warcraft III: Reforged. For those who have not followed, this is a remastered version of the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) and its extension The Frozen Throne (2003).
It is therefore possible to replay the sixty missions of the original games by embodying the units and heroes of the four factions in presence: humans, orcs, night elves and the living dead. Of course the multiplayer part – which was once the heyday of the e-sports scene – is also back alongside the personalized parts which, at the time, notably gave birth to a certain Dota.
Remaster obliges, the graphics, in particular the models of the units and the terrain, have been revised upwards until 4K, while using the same engine as at the time in order to ensure, in multi, compatibility between the players on Reforged and those evolving on the classic version of Warcraft iii. Most of the dialogues have also been re-recorded and Blizzard has made some small changes in some menus, although the majority of the experience remains fairly close to the original.
For purists note that it is also possible to choose to play in Reforged with the original graphics by pressing a single button in the options.
Complicated childbirth
Announced during the Blizzcon in November 2018, Warcraft III: Reforged will have visibly experienced a chaotic development and especially an almost total absence of communication on the part of Blizzard during the year 2019. Reduction of the development teams of classic games, many changes and deletions in terms of content, modifications initially announced to respect the wishes of certain players (and an ideal excuse to lighten the development load, most likely) are certainly among the elements that prompted Blizzard not to offer a closed beta only from the very end of 2019, when it was expected for the start of the same year.
Similarly, the release of the final game was postponed until the end of January 2020 (instead of the end of 2019), a rare fact for Blizzard. Very far from being perfect both in terms of content (added to the drop-by-drop account of updates) and performance, the closed beta phase was also not very reassuring as to the final state of the game.
So what about this version 1.0, which changelog is available online ?
We will first note a few additions in terms of options and gameplay (display of certain information, recharging times in figures, keyboard shortcuts in grid … etc.) or even the possibility of linking a classic account to your Battle account. net, even if it didn’t seem to work with us. In addition to the visual polish of the units and the terrain already mentioned, Blizzard then provides the minimum service on the campaign side.
Only three of the main cities of the game have really been reworked but we will still appreciate the addition of automatic backups and a rebalancing of the difficulty. A pretty long list of known issues is also part and we have already seen some bugs on our side too, after a few minutes of play. Likewise, we will note the absence of online profiles and clans, however present on the original version. So there remains, surely, still work “.
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