Warcraft 3: Reforged 2.0 is almost the perfect upgrade of one of the all-time greats of the RTS genre, but I think the upscaled OG graphics are still better.
It’s well known that Reforged’s original launch in 2020 was a bust. Many features from the original game were missing; some advanced key commands had been removed; and on a surface level, the whole thing somehow looked lifeless versus the original, blockier visual presentation. It all came down to a rework of the entire art direction that took much of the cartoony charm away from the unit and building designs. More than four years later and with the 2.0 patch fixing almost every issue, I’m having a blast with Warcraft 3’s latest iteration again, but I’m extremely thankful for the ability to stick with the OG graphics while retaining the other Reforged improvements.
The November 13 shadow-drop also included far simpler Warcraft 1 and 2 remasters, a predictable follow-up to Reforged’s poor reception and 2017’s StarCraft Remastered doing just fine with just a handful of QoL changes and upscaled original graphics, which is what W3: Reforged should’ve been from the get-go. Unsurprisingly, the 2.0 update focused on that aspect first and foremost. “This is Warcraft 3 just like you remember it, only sharper.” Of course, deeper fixes and additions came with it, but Blizzard was well aware of the negative response generated by the art rework in 2020.
I won’t lie: Some parts of the Reforged presentation look fine. In fact, I really like most buildings and some of the depth added to the natural environments. However, the whole thing looks too visually cluttered once s**t hits the fan and both towns and armies grow larger. Warcraft 3 isn’t typically played with the camera really zoomed out, so adding too many details to the units and heroes was bound to result in too much visual noise for a game that’s an RTS, not a Diablo-like. You have to be able to quickly realize who’s who, what’s what, and where everyone and everything is.
For some reason, Lemon Sky Studios and Blizzard Entertainment didn’t think this whole thing through. After four years of complaints and folks trying to downgrade their official Warcraft 3 copies (you were forced to download all 30 gigs of Reforged whether you wanted or not), the 2.0 re-launch rights most of those wrongs, but the ability to use the old graphics isn’t exactly new. They’re, however, delightfully uprezzed now, and can be fully customized. For example, you can have modern effects and environments while keeping the original (but sharper) models for everything else.
It’s not only a great answer to fan complaints about Reforged’s slightly darker and far more generic look, but also a reminder that more remasters could go down the route of offering modular visual upgrades. While recent releases like Tomb Raider I-III Remastered are pretty great and even let you switch to the old graphics on the fly, it’s very often that people like some bits of a remaster while hating others. Having the ability to customize different chunks of Reforged is something I wasn’t expecting as someone who’d skipped the 2020 release altogether.
The Reforged mode, while inferior, has also received updates which range from subtle to rather big. For example, maps have seen a pretty decent glow-up. Moreover, the ability to customize hero skins (with heroes like Arthas and Thrall being taken from the campaigns and dropped right into Skirmishes/Online) has far more options available, for some odd reason, if you stick with the newer graphical look. Regardless, I’ve found that the original 2002 facade is just much easier on the eyes, especially when half the screen is up in flames and with dozens of grunts swinging their weapons.
There’s also a deeper explanation of why us W3 veterans gravitate towards how the game looked for nearly 20 years: We think of pre-Alliance/Horde Azeroth as a lively and cartoonish place that any sort of modern reimagining with big ideas won’t be able to capture. If Diablo diehards beat the drum of that franchise looking better the darker it was until Diablo 4 fully embraced that, then us Warcraft heads like to say the opposite.
I’m, however, interested in what the future of the Warcraft IP can bring beyond more WoW expansions (I strongly believe the legendary MMORPG has overstayed its welcome and is running on fumes), and that includes perhaps darker takes on the universe, but Warcraft 3 just pops out of the screen and even flows gameplay-wise much better when it looks like a bunch of low-poly action figures and dioramas with weird proportions and lots of straight lines. Sometimes, it’s better to let the past feel like the past.
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