A Warcraft 4 release date is no longer an impossible dream. Sure, it’s not exactly likely, but Blizzard has semi-officially semi-confirmed that they are semi-considering doing another Warcraft after the StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void release date comes and goes. Yea, that’s a lot of hypotheticals, but it’s the most positive Warcraft 4 news we’ve gotten in a long time. And like a dog that finally catches its tail and doesn’t know what to do with it, we’re left wondering… what would we actually want from Warcraft 4?
Imagine The Warcraft 4 Of Your Dreams
Let’s pretend that Warcraft 4 goes into development the day Legacy of the Void comes out (on Nov. 10 of this year), and comes out a few years after that. What does the game have to do to stand out? Man, it has to do a lot. It has to transcend three games in particular. First and most easily, it must be better than Warcraft 3. But that game is ten years old and reasonably dated, so that should be easy. Second, it must be better—or at least substantially different from—StarCraft 2. Lastly, it must surpass World of Warcraft itself, the hardest task of all.
WoW is over ten years old now, and its continuing success is a big part of the reason why we haven’t gotten Warcraft 4 yet. The juggernaut juggs on, as they say. Well, WoW is finally in a long and deep decline, and although the game will last for many more years, the world has moved on. And that means the world is ready for another Warcraft.
Is it even possible for Warcraft 4 to synthesize WoW into an RTS format, while still leaving room to do more stuff with WoW while it continues to endure? I bet Blizzard itself doesn’t know the answer. How many races would Warcraft 4 have? Four again? WoW is sprawling with races that played very minor roles in Warcraft 3, and every one will have to be in Warcraft 4 in some capacity. Some can just be units, but does having a full four factions even make sense anymore?
Storywise, will Warcraft 4 just take up from where WoW leaves off? Doubt it—the MMO game will still be running. Or will there be a big WoW finale that ends major story development, and transitions us into Warcraft 4? That seems more likely, but it wouldn’t please the World of Warcraft faithful.
Face it: Warcraft 4 has big obstacles ahead of it, both in terms of gameplay and story. And that’s especially true as the RTS genre has faded in recent years, eclipsed by the more esports-friendly but less single-player-interesting MOBA genre. These are formidable challenges. Blizzard can overcome them, if it wants to. But Warcraft 4, even if it does happen, is a complicated beast.
What do you want from Warcraft 4, or is the mere hope of its existence enough?
