Even if you aren’t a fan of Warcraft or Activision Blizzard, it’s likely been impossible to ignore last week’s launch of Warcraft 3: Reforged. A hotly anticipated update of one of gaming’s best RTS titles, Activision Blizzard flubbed the launch so hard that the re-release has become the lowest user rated game on Metacritic. That response may be hyperbolic, but the game is not in a good state.
Wishing to stop that backlash from growing out of control, Blizzard has hastily made an update on its official website. In a post titled “Warcraft III: Reforged Developer Update,” the company apologized to fans for delivering a sub-par experience and is vowing to make things better. Not directly addressing the multitude of issues noted, the blog does state that some updates will be coming to Reforged in both the near and distant future.
“The team is excited that Warcraft III: Reforged is finally upon us and we’re fully committed to supporting the game for a long time to come,” reads the post. “The next few patches and updates we’ll discuss below are just part of our ongoing plans.” Oddly, the first thing on the docket is fixing the visuals in Classic mode, a concern that I haven’t seen echoed by anyone.
Next up, the team claims it will be making changes to fix issues with portrait animations, sort out audio problems, implement UI fixes, and a few other cosmetic changes. This will also come with an improved online infrastructure similar to the one used in Starcraft: Remastered. Why this wasn’t available for launch is anyone’s guess. More plans on this specific update will be revealed in the coming weeks.
The biggest elephant in the room deals with the redone cutscenes, or lack thereof. When Blizzard announced the game back at BlizzCon 2018, it stated that Reforged would be getting entirely redone cutscenes for the game’s various campaign modes. It even used trailers promoting this footage and still hosts the words “Enjoy an epic saga retold with over four hours of reshot cutscenes” on its store page. The redone cutscenes didn’t end up, but Blizzard has a reason.
“We did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. We went a little deeper into the thought process behind that at the show”, reads the update, “but the main takeaway is that the campaigns tell one of the classic stories in Warcraft history, and we want to preserve the true spirit of Warcraft III and allow players to relive these unforgettable moments as they were.” That doesn’t make a lick of sense with what was promoted.
If all of this hasn’t calmed your anger over the product, then you’ll be happy to know that Blizzard is now offering instantaneous refunds for Reforged. As spotted by users on Reddit, a new support page on Battle.net has been set up that will automatically give users refunds regardless of circumstances. You can play the game for any length of time and still receive a refund, so Blizzard clearly knows people are upset.
It remains to be seen if this gesture will be enough to quell the anger around Reforged, but at least Blizzard has said something. This product never should have been released in the state it is, but that’s just gaming in 2020 for you.
Source: Blizzard, Reddit
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