Blizzard co-founder shoots down plans for a remaster of the original 'Warcraft'

By Gabe Gurwin November 7, 2016

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans Cinematic

Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce had some unusually harsh words for one of the developer’s most famous games, the original

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Warcraft. Speaking at a Q&A at this year’s Blizzcon event, Pearce stated that the 1994 strategy game is “just not that fun anymore,” and that Blizzard has no interest in remastering it or its first sequel.

“We had some dedicated folks that were passionate about [remastering the game] dig up the Warcraft 1 assets and code,” Pearce said to a curious fan. “They got it working and they got it running in a window. And I played it. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was awesome for its time. I promise you, in today’s world, by today’s standards, it’s just not that fun anymore.”

Apparently, Blizzard’s reverence for the original Diablo is much stronger than its feelings toward Warcraft. Blizzard announced during Blizzcon that a special The Darkening of Tristam update would essentially feature the entirety of the first Diablo inside Diablo III, complete with graphical options to get players in the old-school mood. The game was released just two years later than Warcraft, but time appears to have been on its side.

The last full sequel in the Warcraft series, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, was released more than 14 years ago, and deals in part with the story of Arthas, who would go onto become the evil, powerful Lich King featured in World of Warcraft‘s second expansion. Since then, the Starcraft series, and, in particular, the enduring Starcraft II, have been Blizzard’s strategy focus.

World of Warcraft: Legion is the most recent installment in the overarching Warcraft franchise, and was released to very positive reception. The recent film version wasn’t as well received, with the orcs’ and humans’ first encounter getting lost in a surprisingly serious narrative that didn’t embrace the games’ campy tone.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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Blizzard and NetEase reportedly cancel a Warcraft mobile MMO

Orc and human facing off for Warcraft promo art.

A Warcraft mobile MMO from Blizzard and NetEase is reportedly canceled after three years of development.

This spinoff project, codenamed Neptune, was a mobile MMO World of Warcraft spin-off that took place during a different time period. Blizzard and NetEase scrapped it due to an unspecified financial disagreement This news comes by way of a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the game's development. Bloomberg reached out to NetEase and Activision Blizzard for comment on the project's status, but neither company chose to comment on the matter.

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Activision Blizzard plans mobile Warcraft, next Call of Duty

Warcraft 3 Reforged main character holds a hammer and stares at the camera.

Activision Blizzard plans to release a new Call of Duty game and mobile Warcraft game in 2022, according to a February 2022 financial results report.
As part of that report, the company went over what investors could expect from Activision, Blizzard, and King in 2022. Notably, a Warcraft game for mobile phones is officially teased for the first time: "Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time."
We've yet to learn the title of this game or see it in action. It'll be the first Warcraft game released since the disappointing Warcraft 3: Reforged in 2020, and the second to hit iOS and Android, following Hearthstone.
In the same report, Activision discussed Call of Duty in great detail. While the teased Call of Duty game is still untitled, this financial results report and a tweet from Infinity Ward heavily suggest that it's Modern Warfare 2. "Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio," the results state. "The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting." Shortly afterward, Infinity Ward tweeted, "A new generation of Call of Duty is coming soon. Stay frosty."
https://twitter.com/InfinityWard/status/1489346822208249861
"Stay frosty" is an iconic line of John "Soap" MacTavish, a classic Modern Warfare character that was only teased in the 2019 reboot. Considering that 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as the series' best game in recent memory, it's not a surprise that the Modern Warfare 2 rumors are true. A report from Bloomberg claims that this game will still release on PlayStation consoles, which makes sense as the Microsoft acquisition isn't expected to be complete until June 30, 2022.
Despite the acquisition being in progress, developers fighting to unionize, and the delay of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV, this financial results report confirms that we can still expect new games from Activision Blizzard in 2022.

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World of Warcraft will finally unite the Alliance and Horde

Human and orc sharing a drink together.

Peace has finally come to Azeroth. World of Warcraft will finally allow players to party together across the two factions. Now players from the Alliance can form a group with Horde players to take down dungeons and raids together. The cross-faction instanced content will be put on the public test server soon for update 9.2.5.

Since the beginning of World of Warcraft, two factions have dominated the fantasy world of Azeroth, the Alliance and the Horde. The opposing factions have been, more or less, in open conflict with each other for almost twenty years. Player versus player content has almost exclusively revolved around this premise, until now.