Warcraft 2 is an absolute classic RTS has been properly remade by fans and is now available for free to Warcraft 3: Reforged owners
The first part of a full-fledged remake of Warcraft II’s campaign is now playable in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Thanks to a dedicated fan base, Reforged is now available for free.
Named Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War , and it aims to bring the gameplay and presentation of 1995’s Warcraft II closer to that of 2002’s beloved Warcraft III. LoreCraft Designs, the team behind the project, will release the campaign in stages, with the Horde-focused “Tides of Darkness” campaign available now. Those who own Blizzard’s 2020 remake of Warcraft III can download and play the custom campaign for free.
Shadi, one of the mod’s creators, stated in a post from the project’s Discord server shared on X that Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War has been in the works for over three and a half “grueling” years, during which the team has had to endure Warcraft III: Reforged’s “sorry state.”
According to Shadi, the team had to make a difficult decision between continuing to tweak and polish the remake, as they consider themselves “perfectionists,” and releasing a playable version sooner. LoreCraft Designs chose the latter option, with the goal of patching the project on a regular basis and addressing any critical bugs or crashes that may arise. There have been no announcements regarding the release date of a remake of the human-focused second part of the Warcraft II campaign.
In many ways, the fan remake of Warcraft II is what fans expected from Warcraft III: Reforged: a revamped and updated campaign that brings a classic game into the modern era. Instead, Warcraft III: Reforged received harsh criticism upon release for lacking features found in the original version of the game and failing to deliver on things like new cutscenes and expanded story elements that were shown during development but did not make it into the final product.
Because of the game’s poor reception upon release, Blizzard temporarily relaxed its normal refund policy and offered no-questions-asked refunds for Warcraft III: Reforged to accommodate fans who felt the game didn’t “provide the experience they desired.” According to later reports, the development of Warcraft III: Reforged was hampered by budget cuts and mismanagement.
Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War is just the most recent example of Blizzard fans taking matters into their own hands when it comes to updating or remaking games that Blizzard has left alone. Fans have long imagined what a more modern game set in the Warcraft universe might look like if it used something like Epic’s Unreal Engine 5.