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Ever since it was announced, Blizzard Entertainment’s WarCraft III has been hotly demanded by Real-Time Strategy (RTS) fans everywhere. WarCraft II was and is widely considered to be one of the titles that solidified RTS as a distinct genre. Likewise, StarCraft was designed with three very distinct races that played substantially differently, while also providing us with an intriguing and involving story. With two genre-defining RTS’ as its ancestors, WarCraft III has high expectations to live up to. Fans want the same frenetic, rapid pace that characterizes Blizzard’s previous games, but also want something “new”.

Fortunately for us, WarCraft III combines many of the best qualities of Blizzard’s previous games, while adding enough of a spin on the gameplay to keep things fresh.

Game Background

Originally, the successor to the WarCraft franchise was going to be an adventure game, “WarCraft Adventures”. WarCraft Adventures was to be set a few years after the events in the WarCraft II expansion Beyond the Dark Portal. During the game, we would find out that the Orcs lost the war in WarCraft II, and with the subsequent destruction of the Portal between realms, were trapped and at the mercy of the humans. With their defeat, many orcs were enslaved by the humans, with the remaining free Orcs growing despondent, and despairing.

WarCraft Adventures was about Thrall, an Orc slave raised by humans in the aftermath of the war. The game was originally intended to be about Thrall’s quest to restore the Orcs into a free, proud people. One of the revelations slated for WarCraft Adventures was to be that the Orcs were not truly the savage bloodthirsty raiders they were depicted as in the first two WarCraft games. Instead, the Orcs, while not civilized in the sense of having a formal, structured society, had a rich culture and a deep spiritual values. Thrall, at the end of Adventures, was to have brought the Orcs back to their old ways, and freed them from enslavement at the hands of the humans.

Although WarCraft Adventures was unfortunately cancelled, its story became background for WarCraft III.

Game Story

At the beginning of WarCraft III, peace has reigned over the land for many years. The orcs have broken free from the humans. The human Alliance itself has, over the years, became lax and somewhat decadent. Many of the previous institutions of the Alliance, such as the Paladin order, have been disgraced, disused, or disbanded. However, a new threat looms over the horizon. The Burning Legion, the demonic force that originally corrupted the orcs and prompted them to invade, has set its sights on the land. WarCraft III’s official story centres on the struggles between the four playable factions and ultimately between them, and the Burning Legion.

Play Modes

The Beta version of WarCraft III only supports multiplayer play, on Battle.net. Currently, every player “slot” in a game must be occupied by an actual person—computer controlled players are not available at the moment. The full version of WarCraft III will support LAN play, have a story mode akin to StarCraft’s, and will possibly have an option allowing for computers to control multiplayer “slots”. However, it is quite possible that computer-controlled players will be removed entirely from multiplayer games, as the new emphasis on tight teamwork does not lend itself to computer-controlled allies.