Warcraft 3 is Blizzard Entertainment’s third game in the Warcraft franchise and is one of the older eSports games that is still played today. The vanilla version of the game, Reign of Chaos, was released in 2002, followed by The Frozen Throne expansion set, released in 2003. Because the game falls under the real-time strategy genre, players will normally battle each other by building bases, gathering resources, training armies, using special units called “heroes,” and teching up.
Players will use one of four races with different strengths and weaknesses, including hero units and skills. Speaking of heroes, players can also recruit certain neutral heroes that are not a part of their chosen race’s tech tree. The limit on the number of heroes trained per player is three heroes.
In 2019, Blizzard released a remastered version of the game called Warcraft 3: Reforged with updated graphics and rebalanced unit stats. While this aimed to improve the experience, many players were outraged because Blizzard released a buggy game and effectively replaced the classic Warcraft 3. Playing classic Warcraft 3 without using Reforged and switching to classic graphics is no longer possible without resorting to piracy as Blizzard forced classic owners to switch to Reforged, and refunding the game also removes the classic game.
Warcraft 3: Reforged received an update on June 15 that reportedly addresses player concerns by adding the following:
- Ranked Play
- Leaderboards
- Player Profiles
The update may be able to revitalise the multiplayer scene by ranking players and introducing both ranked and unranked play.
Warcraft 3 was popular before, and even with the controversy with Reforged, Warcraft 3 still continues to pop up in different sportsbooks to this day.