Despite growing excitement over Warcraft III: Reforged, Blizzard isn’t in a hurry to continue the series. At least, not yet. In a recent interview, Blizzard senior producer Pete Stilwell talked about the future of the Warcraft strategy franchise. Outlook: hazy.
Talking to GameSpot, Stilwell said “we don’t have any plans around [Warcraft 4] at this point.” He mentioned that, currently, Warcraft III: Reforged takes the top billing. The team plans on getting that game out before looking too far in the future.
Warcraft III: Reforged.
Chaos Reigns
This does make sense, considering the amount of work Blizzard has pumped into Reforged. During BlizzCon 2018, the company talked about the laborious detail going into the game. Representing the Blizzard classic games team, Tim Morton told the audience that Warcraft III: Reforged is incomparable to StarCraft Remastered.
“It’s was a pretty substantial effort [to remaster],” Morton said. “Starcraft Remastered was also a substantial effort, but the scope of assets and just complexity of the [Warcraft III] engine – this was Blizzard’s first 3D game – it’s orders of magnitude more work, even than Starcraft Remastered.”
More than just a fresh coat of paint, Warcraft III: Reforged will see remodeled characters and animations. There will also be upgrades to maps, the UI, and the world editor. The campaigns are all getting remastered, and resolutions can now reach up to 4K. That final bit about resolutions definitely raises my eyebrows, considering I first played the game on a 4:3 CRT monitor back in the day. Looking at the footage, it almost feels like a remake instead of a remaster. Well, at least the janky-ass animations for the ghouls still look familiar.
Whether or not we’ll see another Warcraft strategy game soon is up in the air, unfortunately. But regardless, we’re still looking forward to leveling up heroes and trying to mine for fish when Warcaft III: Reforged hits PC next year.
