Warcraft III: Reforged was announced during BlizzCon 2018, alongside the disastrous Diablo: Immortal reveal, with infinitely more positive audience reaction for the former than the latter. Originally slated for a late 2019 release, Reforged's release slipped to late January 2020—with the promise of additional game polish. That didn't quite work out. Although Reforged's excellent core gameplay remains faithful to Warcraft III's RPG-meets-RTS tactics, its overall package is underwhelming. Longtime Warcraft III may want to steer clear due to Reforged's many issues, but newcomers who don't know what they're missing may find the remade PC game enjoyable.
The Good Stuff
Warcraft III: Reforged improves a few facets of the original game, but the core gameplay remains unchanged, which is a good thing. You gather resources to build your base, train units, improve structures, expand your military borders, and wipe out any enemy units you come across. The staple RTS fog of war limits unit visibility, as does the game's day and night cycle, giving you a multitude of strategic elements to wrestle with as you expand and conquer. These elements are fairly standard fare as far as RTS games go, but Reforged's gameplay is just as engaging now as it was when Warcraft III debuted in 2002.
Warcraft gives you individual heroes to command, as well as standard military units. Heroes are hardier soldiers possessing special abilities that can heal allies, cast defensive buffs, or perform powerful magical attacks. They can also collect battlefield spoils that range from consumable healing items to stat-boosting accessories. As hero units engage in combat, they earn experience that's used to improve existing skills or add new ones to their repertoire. If this sounds familiar, that's because the gameplay systems introduced in Warcraft III nearly two decades ago have had a tremendous influence in the RTS and MOBA genres. DOTA 2 and League of Legends have their origins rooted in Warcraft. These are facts that Blizzard has not forgotten. I'll get into that in a bit.
Reforged's single-player campaigns alone will keep you busy for dozens of hours, as they feature lengthy tales told from the perspective of multiple races. In fact, Reforged includes missions from the original Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne expansion. New to the mix is an easier Story Mode difficulty that's designed for people unfamiliar with the genre (though the normal and hard difficulties are still available for longtime fans). All in all, the campaign alone makes Reforged a solid buy. Once you're finished the campaigns, you can dive into the multiplayer content. But beware, because here there be monsters.
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Broken Promises
Reforged's reveal promised a major graphical overhaul, an expanded story that incorporates World of Warcraft lore, and enhanced cinematic scenes. Reforged improves the visuals—for the most part. Structures, NPCs, monsters, and most units are nicely touched-up compared to the original games. That said, stiff animations lead to an overall visual cheapness. Some textures and maps have a bizarre blurriness to them that make them seem lower res than they're supposed to be. Likewise, despite the HD visual support, the game's UI doesn't scale well at higher resolutions. The user interface is massive, as are the tutorial messages and dialogue exchanges, which can take up most of the screen. This also cheapens the visuals. At times, it feels like I'm looking at a low-rent mobile game screen, and not a remake of a legendary PC RTS.
I would have appreciated a more useful zoom feature. You can zoom in to units, which I find fairly useless when commanding and managing resources across expansive maps. The zoom out function is also fairly limited, so all too often I found myself wishing that I could zoom out further to better assess my environment.
Some story scenes, while definitely tweaked, lack the cinematic flair that the BlizzCon 2018 trailer showcased. Others were not remastered at all, or at least not in a way that I could discern. You can opt to use the classic visuals if you aren't particularly impressed with Reforged's overhauled look.
Unfortunately, the one thing you can no longer do is enjoy classic Warcraft III, as the Reforged client now replaces it and forces you to use its online functionality. So, unless you have an old, physical Warcraft III copy, and are willing to play LAN with buddies, you're stuck with this new version of the game. That's awful.
Reforged Hardware
Reforged runs well enough, though. On my Nvidia GeForce GTX 970-powered gaming desktop, the game regularly tops 80 frames per second at max settings. Warcraft III: Reforged requires a gaming PC that has at least an Intel Core i3-530 or AMD Phenom II X4 910 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 or AMD Radeon HD 5750 graphics card, 4GB of RAM, 30GB of storage, and the Windows 7 operating system. The game is also available on the macOS platform. It boasts a 4K resolution, too.
Good, Bad, and Ugly
Reforged launched with a wealth of changed or outright missing content. You can't create custom key binds, so you'll need to go into your game files and edit them in a DOC or TXT file to replicate the experience. There are no clans, profiles, or leaderboards, either. You cannot have more than one account any more. The game lacks tournament functionality. Custom game lists are limited to the region you live in, greatly limiting the custom games you can play. In short, Blizzard gutted Warcraft III.
To top it all off, Reforged's user agreement has been reworked so that Blizzard lays claim to all custom games. Remember how I stated that DOTA has its origins in Warcraft? That's because DOTA started off as a custom game mod for Warcraft III. Valve snatched up the designer to create DOTA 2 for its Source game engine, and it seems Blizzard is still salty about losing those esports bucks to this day. Not one to make the same mistake twice, Blizzard now states that all custom Reforged games belong to the company, though this aggressive IP safeguard is likely to stifle creativity rather than foster it.
That's not to say multiplayer is inactive. Reforged players are making custom games, and veterans are more than eager to absolutely curb-stomp novice players diving into the scene for the first time. But quite simply, Reforged doesn't offer much newness for veterans to enjoy, and strips away features that those players have come to expect.
Why You Should Game on a PC
To Buy or Not to Buy
Blizzard has addressed some of the complaints and criticism hurled its way, and has promised to work on many of these issues. Naturally, one must ask why the game was released in such a state, especially considering the negative attention the company has garnered over the past year with the reveal of Diablo Immortal and the Blizzard/China controversy.
As it stands, Warcraft III: Reforged is still a solid buy for casual RTS fans and those who may not have played the original game. The unique RTS/RPG hybrid gameplay, beefy story campaign, and multiplayer modes will keep newcomers entertained for a very long time. Still, fans hoping for a nostalgic reimaging of a classic will be disappointed by what little was added to Reforged compared to what was lost.
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.
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