Warcraft II is getting a remaster

Some good news today for all you RTS-heads out there (yeah I'm looking at all 2 of you)

Starcraft II remaster is out on gamepass today, always wanted to try that classic.

And it seems Blizzard isn't done with 2D remasters, and they are now working on Warcraft II.

Warcraft III will go down in history as one of my most played online games, I used to play all the custom game modes like pokemon TD, sheep tag, footsoldier frenzy or even GTA San Andreas.

Any love for the older Blizzard titles?

They're now unable to create anything good, so might as well re-release their old shit. We just have to hope that they don't find a way to **** it up anyway, like they did with Warcraft 3 by making it worse than the OG, then forcing it upon people.

Well just so you know, Blizzard was always multiple studios (like Rockstar). They closed down their RTS studio many years ago.

So they can't make anything new. These remasters are just made by a small amount of people in their US office, and then a large amount of developers in China or Asia that remake or upscale all the assets.

Never been a Blizzard fan, in fact I can't remember ever playing a game they've made.

Before Diablo 3 Blizzard had the same reputation among PC gamers as Valve had:

They never released a game before it was done, their games were always chock full of content, they embraced the community and they only made banger games.

Not sure what happened but Blizzard now is a company that tricks kids into spending money on their parents CC. So I'm gonna assume it was new leadership.

@R4gn4r0k: I had to google their games list and have played 2 of their games back in the Mega Drive days in Lost Vikings which was pretty average and the excellent Rock n Roll Racing.

I like remasters, but in recent years they've went from something of value polishing up games that could be doing it to feeling like publishers cynically taking the piss.

Exceptions, Tomb Raider, Nightdive, but by and large feels like their value has diminished.

Nightdive really goes to town with their remasters, they feel like brand new games. Is that a standard we can hold other companies up to though?

That is like asking every FPS to be like Half Life

Another great remaster studio is Bluepoint, or with their latest release: Nixxes.

GamePass baby!!

Thank you, Uncle Phil!! :P

Yup, this'll be a day one one gamepass.

Service is so good!

@R4gn4r0k:

And honestly, I'm one of those rare breeds who never even tried a Warcraft game so this would be a real GP treat. ;)

One of the all time greats! Might give it a go, if only so I can remind myself of the times when Blizzard were good.

I actually prefer WC2's RTS elements to WC3. WC3 felt like a step down from StarCraft. WC3 was carried hard by its modding community.

Warcraft 3 for real is a hero driven RTS. Population sizes are really small and yeah heroes are light RPG characters with abilities.

It has one of my all time favourite campaigns though, has all the stuff I love from LOTR like elves or talking trees, haha

Warcraft 2: I've only seen flashes from it. People playing it on their CRTs back in the day, I think it was older than the first Age of Empires?

Do give RTS a try, games like AOE IV or Age of Mythology Retold are great on Xbox.

Like they say: variety is the spice of life :)

Dude, I said I never played Warcraft, not never played RTS games. ;o

In fact, I was likely one of the very few who played and loved the first RTS and legendary on the old Genny...

That's right. You Pee Salty Seas were late to the RTS party baby!! lolol :P

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k:

And honestly, I'm one of those rare breeds who never even tried a Warcraft game so this would be a real GP treat. ;)

Do give RTS a try, games like AOE IV or Age of Mythology Retold are great on Xbox.

Like they say: variety is the spice of life :)

Dude, I said I never played Warcraft, not never played RTS games. ;o

In fact, I was likely one of the very few who played and loved the first RTS and legendary on the old Genny...

That's right. You Pee Salty Seas were late to the RTS party baby!! lolol :P

Beaten by a Genesis game

@Litchie: Dude it's Blizzard. These are the same people who made the diablo game with the best atmosphere and screwed it up with microtransactions (D4), made one of the most interesting FPS games of all time and wasted the whole lore and story (OW), has one of the most tired and boring MMORPGs of all time but still find a way to make it lamer (WoW), canned a whole game series because they can't sell worthless skins for top dollar with it (SC), killed their whole MOBA game series because they didn't want to play second place to league (HotS), and (Like you said) ruined the remaster of a game that THEY MADE and many of the old devs who worked on it still worked there (WCIII).

The only game they haven't messed up was hearthstone. But that's only because it's cheap as hell to keep a card game series going. All they have to do is draw cards (no pun intended), and program recycled effects from WoW.

Remember the olden days people.

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k:

And honestly, I'm one of those rare breeds who never even tried a Warcraft game so this would be a real GP treat. ;)

Do give RTS a try, games like AOE IV or Age of Mythology Retold are great on Xbox.

Like they say: variety is the spice of life :)

Dude, I said I never played Warcraft, not never played RTS games. ;o

In fact, I was likely one of the very few who played and loved the first RTS and legendary on the old Genny...

That's right. You Pee Salty Seas were late to the RTS party baby!! lolol :P

Miss those sick Sega covers.

@R4gn4r0k: of the three, I like Warcraft 2 the best.

Can't wait to try it for the first time, I've also heard nothing but good about Starcraft 1, so I should try it on gamepass when I get home tonight :)

Yeah, the slower pace and emphasis on heroes and smaller armies did not sit too well with me. I loved WarCraft 3. But it was mostly carried by its custom map scene.

WC2 predates AoE by 2 years. Quite simple compared to Age of Empires, but that is part of its charm.

There's a StarCraft II remaster?

I dunno how I feel about WarCraft II remaster. They fucked the third game, as it still has crashes. Quality has gone down significantly. The only decent remasters they've done is StarCraft and Diablo II.

I'd be up for a remake, but a remaster is sort of like putting a fancy hat on a pig, in my opinion.

Diablo 2 remaster was OK, though, so this can't hurt.

Ahaha, no that got mixed up. There is only a Starcraft 1 remaster I believe ^^

I was hyped for Warcraft III Reforged and was so disappointed...so I'm cautious with this one...

Warcraft III & Frozen Throne also was probably the game I was hooked on the most in my gaming life. I loved those custom games...good times

I love Blizzard games like WarCraft II, III, StarCraft, Diablo I, II, III, and IV. Would certainly be interested in this but unless this is coming to consoles then probably won’t be able to anytime soon.

Sheep tag was my favourite, but I also remember pokemon td (and variou other TDs) where you basically had to work together and waves of enemies come.

it was cod zombies before cod zombies.

Well Diablo II remaster did, so there is a slight chance. Also we gotta remember that Phil Spencer is huge on pushing platform agnostic games.

@R4gn4r0k: Yeah, I'm really hoping that it, and perhaps some other Blizzard games get ported over.

If it's anything like Warcraft 3 Reforged ... i rather have the game forgotten and sealed for good. If it is like Starcraft Remastered, then yeah, i'm hyped.

Sadly and with the current state of Blizzard, there is a higher chance to have the Reforged scenario all over again.

i used to do a lot of tournaments with Starcraft. Lots of people did Zerg rushes, which was quite annoying. I remember having to build "pylon mazes" to stop them (or bunker walls). I always had the most fun if no one played as the Zerg. Not that they were over powered - if you know what you are doing, you can stop the Zerg easily in the beginning. And, the longer the match goes on, the Zerg become more and more weak. The game was the most fun when it's Protos and Terrans (IMO).

Dang it - now I want to play Starcraft!!!

That's the fun thing about an RTS: it grows

People find tactics to cheese, you sharpen yours to overcome them. And so on. There is this tricky balance, and if a game nails it (Starcraft, Company of Heroes) it can basically offer up endless possibilities.

I used to only play campaign or versus PC. But once you leave those training wheels behind and take it up versus real people online, the amount of tactics and variations become basically endless.

Playing an RTS online is an experience unlike any other.

Can a noob enjoy Starcraft 2 or is it super leet?

Well online you are gonna get your ass handed to you. Skill ceiling in RTS is incredibly high, and higher than any other genre I would say (maybe not fighting games).

But the singleplayer campaign is excellent, there is a ton of variety between mission backed up by an amazing story.

I was hooked on Dota and Footmen Frenzy I think the most. TD's were so much fun as well. Wintermaul and all the other silly ones like Shopping Maul TD or Dragonball Z TD. I remember Sheep Tag as well...lmao. I use to also play Kodo Tag & Tree Tag

If play basically, any game, RTS, fighting whatever, you're always best playing specifically with a friend or someone you vaguely know.

Randos will just not be a very fun experience when start.

Easy and fun game to learn. It's very competitive. I'd recommend the campaign first, start on easy if you're new to the series or RTS in general. Otherwise normal is fine to start then increase difficulty as you get more comfortable. The difficulty does go up quite a bit, AI gets significantly more aggressive.

@SOedipus: Yeah I'm just thinking about playing the campaign, I don't play anything online.

I love Warcraft 2, but I am not sure how Blizzard could improve on the game. Better graphics aren't really needed.

@boiled-hotdug: dude I played all of those game modes, such fun memories playing WC 3 online.

@uninspiredcup: whenever I play an RTS online I always pick 2v2, v3 and 4v4.

Gott say playing a match with friends and getting beat by randoms with zero coordination can put stress on any relation.

This was my first Blizzard game and I was really struck by it, I think all the reasons for why they could later make a 20 billion dollar revenue game in WoW was apparent in the craft and quality of WC2.

Well that's how I felt then, anyway. Now it's been a long time and I can't even remotely imagine how playing such an old Blizzard game would feel today. My guess is maybe the difficulty is all busted in ways I didn't appreciate back then and it didn't age well.

Or maybe it will be just fine and a reminder that Blizzard was once great but has now changed so much as to be unrecognizable.

I’ve never played Warcraft or StarCraft but have always thought they looked fun and interesting so I will likely try this out.

I have moved to age of empires. The community is really vibrant there. We just got age 4, and all the other ages still get expansions and new content. Specially age of kings.

Blizzard has really neglected their IPs to a point I have lost interest.

That is good I will definitely play it. Despite me growing up with RTS with Starcraft, AoE, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth 2 and Warcraft 3 (and playing a stupid amount of DoTA with friends) forming a memorable portion of my childhood, I never played Warcraft 2 so this will be my first time. Hope it turns out great!

Same with Command and Conquer tbh. I loved Red Alert 2 (and Yuri's Revenge), Generals (and Zero Hour) and enjoyed Red Alert 3 but I never played the mainline series.

Age of Empires is such a good choice, out of all the big franchises (C&C, warcraft, starcraft, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth) it's the one that is still very much alive.

Every AOE that I played is still getting regular updates. And AOE IV is by far the best one.

Gotta say though, kinda enjoy when Blizzard releases something, because they always get a lot of shit for it. It's funny. Sad that Blizzard is gone and replaced by a husk of greed, but still funny.

I'm happy we got both I and II remasterered, I never played those ones. Are they out on Gamepass?

Warcraft III remaster seemingly got a big update.

Yeah, I was surprised by the update. I played around a bit, noticed the graphical upgrades, added skins for heroes and more graphics customization.