Warcraft III: Reforged’s launch has been one of the worst launches in recent time, and certainly the worst that Blizzard has ever had to suffer through. At the moment, the game sits at a Metacritic score of 0.7/10, and that score is still constantly dropping. Obviously a single rating outlet like that isn’t the whole picture, but looking deeper won’t show anything too different.
Admittedly, the game isn’t horrid. Previously at launch, we (specifically myself), attempted to defend it, praising the improved graphics and audio quality while also stating that it certainly could’ve used a few months more of development to avoid the issues players are now experiencing.
But as the days tick by and more and more issues come undone, it’s becoming virtually impossible to find much to defend. One of the undefendable decisions isn’t a new discovery, but with the Reforged release essentially being one large dumpster fire with the word “Blizzard” hastily scrawn across it, it’s been highlighted repeatedly.
The decision in question is Blizzard choosing to remove the original client, making the 2004 release of Warcraft III unplayable. At its core, this seems justifiable. Warcraft III: Reforged was intended to have the same mechanics, story, maps, and everything else of Warcraft III, only updating it visually and sonically. On top of that, the game has an option to turn the visuals back to the original 2004 release’s aesthetic, which many would see to be the same thing.
https://twitter.com/Warcraft3/status/1222927732591427589?s=20
But the issue comes in with the fact that, now that Warcraft III: Reforged has turned out to be the aforementioned fire-in-a-dumpster that it is, anyone who wants to play the actually-playable version of Warcraft III is just purely out of luck. Even if that wasn’t the case, purists or loyalists that may have wanted to stick to the original version of the game are being tossed aside as well.
It all begs the question – what did Blizzard learn from their recent release of World of Warcraft: Classic? After literally years – more than a decade, even – of fans asking to play the game in its original form, Blizzard finally caved and gave us World of Warcaft: Classic. What’s more, that release went (relatively) fantastically and revitalized interest in World of Warcraft. If anything, this only served to highlight more attention onto the upcoming release of Reforged.
So why, in the immediate wake of seeing how appreciative and excited the gaming community was to receive Classic, would Blizzard decide to remove the original Warcraft III? It’s all a bit mindboggling, really.
The coming weeks will probably be filled with updates for Reforged as Blizzard tries to put the fires raging on in the dumpster out. At this point, all the rest of us can really do is sit back and watch them pat the flames.
