At the opening night of BlizzCon yesterday, Blizzard announced a new campaign and a major update for Warcraft 3 Reforged, the 2020 remake that originally promised a great deal but launched in a rushed state that many players felt was worse than the original.
The newly revealed Forsaken Kingdom campaign will revisit the founding of the city of Undercity and focus primarily on Sylvanas and the undead. It is being released alongside update 3.0, which Blizzard says adds a range of new features, including an enhanced “Definitive Edition” graphical presentation intended to bring the visuals closer to what many expected when the first remake was announced.
Reaction among players was mixed and at times skeptical. Many were disappointed to discover that Forsaken Kingdom contains almost no missions involving classic base building; instead, the expansion follows a structure more like the earlier Rexxar-style content, where the player controls a single hero, outfits that hero, and completes a series of tasks. Another common complaint is that the upgraded textures and graphical overhaul are limited to the Forsaken Kingdom campaign only, and have not been applied to the original Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne campaigns.
Blizzard has spent the past six years addressing problems with Reforged, and the company says the game is in a better state than at launch, but lingering grievances remain among the community. Forsaken Kingdom will be sold separately at a price of a whopping €30.