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Is It Time For Warcraft 4?

by - 10 years ago

Image source: http://jackshepardn7.deviantart.com/art/WarCraft-IV-306500969

Image source: http://jackshepardn7.deviantart.com/art/WarCraft-IV-306500969

Is it time for Warcraft 4?

With all of the speculation and uncertainty about what Blizzard was going to announce at BlizzCon (most people bet rightly on a WoW expansion, but the trademark confusion about the Dark Below and Corgis Unleashed had a lot of people confused) one thing went mostly under the radar: is there ever going to be another RTS game in the Warcraft franchise?

There are a lot of reasons to believe this is in the cards, especially after the announcement of Warlords of Draenor:

.. okay, except Maraad.

.. okay, ignore Maraad.

  • WoD’s emphasis on the orcish clan leaders from WC1/2 as prominent characters communicates that these are characters Blizzard enjoyed in the past and wanted to bring back into the spotlight. Cory Stockton’s statement that the Garrison draws a lot of inspiration from the bases built in WC3 supports the idea that they’re resurrecting an element from the RTS series that really hasn’t been given a lot of play in WoW itself. Taken together, these two pieces signal that Blizzard has got the RTS series on their minds, and putting those elements out there in WoD will remind players of them as well… just in time for a new RTS game to come out that capitalizes on those same concepts.
  • An answer during one of the Q&A sessions at BlizzCon stated that Blizzard has some staff working internally to make WC1/2 playable on modern machines. With all of the advances in operating systems since the mid-90s, these games can’t be played without the use of emulation software. Combined with Blizzard making another of their classic games (Blackthorne) available on Battle.net, there’s a good chance that making those games playable is part of a larger campaign to bring the RTS crowd back to Warcraft.
  • Jay Wilson, formerly the director of Diablo 3, quietly moved to a different position in the company, which his Twitter profile formerly stated was “Game director for an unannounced game.” (It’s been edited back to “Game Director” since then.) Given that work on Titan started while Wilson was directing D3, one could presume that he’s not directing that, and all of the other known games have directors. Moreover, recall that one of Wilson’s latest titles before coming to Blizzard was Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, an RTS. Combined with recent job listings on Blizzard’s Careers page seeking to fill positions for an  “unannounced game title” that’s looking for a 3d weapons artist and a Lead 3d Character Artist, one could assert that Jay is directing a nascent WC4 team building up steam within Blizzard.
  • At BlizzCon it was revealed that several models for WC3 hero units had received a graphical update and would soon be available for use in the SC2 map editor. Additionally, the presence of numerous WC3 units in the roster for Heroes of the Storm, much like the resurgence of characters from earlier RTS games in WoD, suggests that they’re being given prominence to remind people of WC3, building up to a possible to return to the RTS arena.
    Arthas in Warcraft III

    Arthas in Warcraft III

    Arthas as a prince skin

    Prince Arthas (Heroes)

    Orc Hero Units Updated

    Updated Orc Heroes, before/after

There are a couple important reasons why this might NOT happen, though:

  • Blizzard’s RTS experts are on Starcraft 2, which still has another expansion to release. While Blizzard clearly doesn’t have much of a problem having two RTS franchises, they don’t seem to like dividing their RTS team; Starcraft’s development started after WC2’s development finished, and then WC3’s development started after Brood War was released. SC2’s development started after Frozen Throne was released, and that’s been the RTS team’s focus ever since. So it’s easy to conclude that there won’t be a WC4 until after SC2’s last expansion, Legacy of the Void, is in stores.
  • Meanwhile, all of Blizzard’s Warcraft emphasis is on the MMO. With the team growing both from new hires and from the Titan restart to support the parallel development of both Warlords of Draenor and the follow-up expansion (!), the Warcraft team would be hard-pressed to devote any resources away to an RTS project. Warcraft 3 also raised the bar regarding what the game has to do: provide a character-centric single player campaign narrative with unique playable factions, in addition to being a standalone game with its own competitive multiplayer environment. And aside from the logistical difficulties and the challenge of building a solid sequel, there’s also consistency: how much would WC4 have to both impact WoW and be impacted by changes that take place in WoW?
  • To complicate things further, in an interview with RockPaperShotgun, Stockton stated that Heroes of the Storm is “dominating” the RTS team when asked about the potentiality of WC4. He also echoed the sentiment that WC4 is not currently being developed. Statements in the past from other developers communicated that the team was excited about the prospect of WC4, but aside from that, the public faces of Blizzard have all stated at one point or another that WC4 isn’t in the cards at the moment.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that any hypothetical Warcraft 4 is going to be a Blizzard game. That means it’s not going to be done simply to meet certain baseline requirements; it’s going to iterate, just as we saw iteration from WC1 to WC2, and again from WC2 to WC3. WC3 even worked at moving away from the giant-army-of-units design prevalent in WC2 (and executed again in SC2) by introducing hero units and small squad-based missions. So any new Warcraft RTS is not just going to be WC3 with a new coat of paint; it’s going to be something that amazes the guys who built the original game in the first place, before we ever see a screenshot.

All that being said? The world is ready for a Blizzard-made fantasy RTS again. The jury is still out on whether Blizzard is ready to make it, though.

What do you want to see in Warcraft 4? Should it even happen? Let us know in the comments.


posted in Warcraft
JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


4 responses to “Is It Time For Warcraft 4?”

  1. UThunder says:

    WC4 is my last faith. When it comes out, I can die in piece…

  2. Cyberbard says:

    Metzen, sadly, made it quite clear during BlizzCon that Warcraft 4 isn’t on the horizon; with WoW covering Warcraft and SC2 covering the RTS market, there’s no real need for it from their point of view.

    • MisterCrow says:

      It was Metzen who said that? I think I remember him doing that in an off-panel interview, but I couldn’t find the source.

  3. Steff says:

    I’m sure there will be a Warcraft IV, the question is just when. I guess it will be released after the final expansions of Diablo III and Starcraft II are out which won’t be that soon, so nobody should expect a surprising announcement of Warcraft IV anytime soon.

    By the way, those updated Warcraft III character models look awesome. Are there more of them and is there a site where I can see them all?