Almost exactly eight years since Blizzard said it wasn’t planning to remaster Warcraft 1 & 2 because they’re “just not that fun any more”, the studio has announced it’s doing just that – and both spruce-ups are available today as part of Warcraft’s 30th anniversary celebrations.
The original Warcraft helped catapult Blizzard into the big leagues when it launched back in 1994, to be rapidly following by Warcraft 2 the following years. And the studio’s newly announced remaster promise a range of enhancements to the game’s classic erat-time strategy action, starting with new hand-drawn visuals – said to capture the originals’ art style – which can be swapped toggled on and off in real-time.
As for Warcraft 1 specifically, Blizzard is also adding “modern controls”, including right-click move, bounding box select, and a faster game speed. That’s on top of the UI and UX improvements – including tool tips, health bars, mission select screens, and increased unit select – that’ve been implemented across both titles.
Additionally, Blizzard notes Warcraft 2 still features multiplayer and that all legacy custom maps are fully compatible and playable in the new version.
Warcraft 1 Remastered and Warcraft 2 Remastered are available for PC via Battle.net right now (there’s no word on whether they might eventually show up on other stores), costing $9.99 and $14.99 respectively. Additionally, there’s also a Battle Chest bundle, costing $39.99, that features the new remasters and the much-maligned Warcraft 3: Reforged.
Despite the latter’s terrible launch reception, Blizzard has continued to improve the title since its arrive in 2020, and today also brings a new 2.0 update for all players. This includes overhauled environments and lighting, a revamped UI, up-rezzed HD versions of all classic Warcraft assets, plus a range of quality of life improvements – in-game hockey customisation and revamped ladder were mentioned – and “much, much more”.
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