What Made Warcraft 3 a Legendary Game

It feels like the Warcraft empire is neverending. World of Warcraft continues to grow. It’s telling that in a world where Blizzard has crafted games like Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, so many players keep coming back to the franchise that started it all.

And we have Warcraft 3 to thank for that. While it was only the third franchise entry, it laid the groundwork for the entire Warcraft universe as we know it. Furthermore, it established itself as the ultimate RTS while changing the gaming landscape forever.

With Warcraft 3: Reforged out on January 28, now is the perfect time to revisit what made Warcraft 3 a legendary game.

The Voice Cast

One of the words often used to describe Warcraft 3 is “cinematic.” In-game cutscenes help to establish our characters and plot and engross players in the story. But none of that would work without the stellar vocal cast.

A fully-voiced game may seem simple now, but it was revolutionary in 2002. And the voice actors did a stellar job of making these characters feel real. Thanks to Justin Gross, you really feel the traumas and trials of Arthas. And Michael McConnohie really makes Kel’Thuzad just as compelling as he is creepy.

Thanks to these actors, we can enjoy a game that’s all about heroes.

A Game of Heroes

Earlier franchise entries such as Warcraft 2 introduced a new generation to the RTS genre. And those early games were all about the soldier units you create to outmaneuver and overwhelm your enemy.

While much of Warcraft still focuses on producing and managing these units, there is a new twist: the heroes. While hero units in previous games basically played like regular units, the Warcraft 3 heroes have unique powers and abilities.

This created a fun kind of metagame where your management of heroes was just as important as management of other units. And it helped introduce us to the famous faces of this universe that we would see even more prominently in World of Warcraft. If nothing else, it made the RTS genre feel fresh for the first time in a long time.