Warcraft III: Reforged was a flop. There were many reasons for this – Blizzard knows that too. Internal documents have now reportedly revealed what led to this.
In recent years, the once-glorious image of Blizzard has suffered significantly. The low point was undoubtedly the release of Warcraft III: Reforged. This was a game that fans were eagerly awaiting. Numerous bugs, removed features, and in many cases even a deterioration of functionality caused Reforged to fail spectacularly.
With a user rating of 0.9 out of 10 and 59 out of 100 points from critics, Warcraft III: Reforged was the lowest-rated Blizzard game of all time.
An insider report from Bloomberg has now revealed why the important title failed so hard.
What does the report say? In an article by Jason Schreier, it discusses what is currently happening at Blizzard. They apparently integrated the 200 employees from Vicarious Visions into the Blizzard team. They are primarily supposed to focus on the remake and remaster games.
In this context, the “Team 1” at Blizzard was also restructured and assigned to other tasks. Team 1 had been primarily responsible for developing remake and remaster titles at Blizzard in recent years. Previously, they worked on Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II. Both are games whose development has significantly slowed down or has even been halted.
Heroes of the Storm “is still alive” and receives regular balance patches and new heroes, but the number of these updates has decreased significantly.
No new content is being produced for StarCraft II.
Why did Warcraft III: Reforged fail? Bloomberg reports on internal documents where Blizzard analyzed what went wrong with Warcraft III: Reforged. Several mistakes came together, such as poor planning, poor communication, and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management.
For example, Blizzard announced the game in late 2018 and already offered pre-order sales in 2019 without informing a large part of the development team in advance.
This aligns with the opinion of many players and gaming journalists. Warcraft III: Reforged could have easily used another six months of development time to satisfy the wishes and hopes of fans. Although most bugs have now been fixed and the game runs smoothly, the damage done is essentially irreversible.
Warcraft III: Reforged will be remembered by players for a long time as a major flop.
Were employees also laid off? According to the report, yes. Team 1 employees had the opportunity to apply for other positions at Blizzard. Employees for whom there were no suitable positions were reportedly laid off. Some of them also moved to other companies founded by former Blizzard employees, such as Frost Giant or DreamHaven under Mike Morhaime.
Please note that the information comes from Bloomberg and has not been officially confirmed by Blizzard. The author Jason Schreier is known for having good contacts with individual companies like Blizzard.
How the upcoming remakes will change – such as the not yet officially confirmed “Diablo II: Resurrected”, will surely be shown in the coming months.
