A new part is nowhere in sight, but Blizzard Warcraft 3 warms up again and gives the classic a facelift. But that goes hand in hand with problems.
New graphics, but small
The good news first: Warcraft 3 looks contemporary again. Characters, buildings and surroundings have been completely renewed, especially the heroes look much more detailed than in the original. There are also fluid animations and graphic effects. The problem: The new models can rarely shine because Warcraft should be played with the camera zoomed out as far as possible. At least if you want to keep an overview.
One opportunity would have been the new real-time cutscenes that Blizzard had promised when it announced the remaster. Instead of rigid animations in the small game graphics, there should be specially animated sequences with which the story can be told even better. There is hardly anything left of it. The story continues to be told from a bird’s eye view, sometimes with slightly different camera shots. The discrepancy with the announcement is still large.
Not as promised
The rendered films in the campaign are another wasted opportunity. While the intro has been redesigned from scratch, the rest are just upscaled versions of the originals. Of course they don’t look bad, Blizzard has always been ahead of the times in this area, but the origins in the early two-thousand meter peaks simply cannot be hidden.
The gameplay is as ingenious as ever, newcomers may find it a little slow. The gameplay is clearly communicated at all times, including new nuances. Destroyed buildings are now decaying in great detail. A feast for nostalgics, but newcomers will soon find their way around. A slightly updated new user interface also contributes to this, even if it has not been modernized nearly as originally announced.
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Missing functions
Owners of Reforged and the “old” Warcraft 3 can play together in multiplayer, but that has a catch. Because the Classic version that Blizzard previously offered is automatically updated to the new client. You have the old graphics, but the new menus and features – and some annoyances. Because functions that already had the original were not available at launch, including clans, automatic tournaments and user-created campaigns. By the way, owners of Reforged can also switch to Classic mode with nostalgic graphics.
Conclusion: good, but could be better
The biggest problem with Warcraft 3 Reforged are the full-bodied promises at the first announcement. The lavishly renewed cutscenes, a completely new user interface, story extensions – all of this was blown out. And the disappointment with these cuts now overshadows a really successful update for a legendary game that still plays excellently and looks better than ever.
