The first part of a full-on remake of Warcraft II’s campaign is now playable in Warcraft III: Reforged for free thanks to a group of dedicated fans.
It’s called Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War, and it looks to update Warcraft II, which was released in 1995, to be closer to that of 2002’s beloved Warcraft III in terms of gameplay and presentation. The team behind the project, LoreCraft Designs, will be releasing the campaign in multiple parts, with part one, the Horde-focused “Tides of Darkness” campaign, available now. The custom campaign can be downloaded and played for free by those who already own Blizzard’s 2020 remake of Warcraft III.
In a post from the project’s Discord server shared on X, one of the mod’s creators, Shadi, remarked 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 hard decision on whether to continue tweaking and polishing the remake, as they see themselves as “perfectionists,” or releasing a playable version sooner. LoreCraft Designs decided on the latter option, with the goal being to regularly patch the project and address any critical bugs or crashes that may arise. There have been no announcements on when a remake of the human-focused second part of the Warcraft II campaign will release.
In many ways, the fan remake of Warcraft II is what fans thought they would be getting with Warcraft III: Reforged: an overhauled and updated campaign bringing a classic game into the modern era. Instead, Warcraft III: Reforged was heavily criticized at launch for lacking features found in the original version of the game and failing to deliver on things such as new cutscenes and expanded story elements that were shown during development but didn’t make it into the final product.
As a result of the game’s poorly received launch, Blizzard temporarily relaxed its normal refund policy and offered no-questions asked refunds for Warcraft III: Reforged to accommodate fans who found the game didn’t “provide the experience they wanted.” Reports later claimed Warcraft III: Reforged’s development was a victim of budget cuts and mismanagement.
Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War is just the latest instance of Blizzard fans taking matters into their own hands when it comes to updating or remaking games that Blizzard itself has left untouched. An ambitious fan remake of Blizzard’s MOBA Heroes of the Storm, complete with new content, was recently made playable for free within StarCraft II, and fans have long dreamed of what a more modern game set in the Warcraft universe might look like were it to use something like Epic’s Unreal Engine 5.
