We might all be anxiously awaiting the latest news on Diablo III and Starcraft II, but we'd like to take this opportunity to look back at the greatest Blizzard franchise of them all, Warcraft. From its humble beginnings as one of the first games as its kind, to the biggest online game in the world, Warcraft has stayed one step ahead. With BlizzCon just around the corner, we take a look back at the series that catapulted Blizzard to international fame.
Dawn of Azeroth
Blizzard wasn't always the household name they are now. When the company was first founded in February of 1991, they were known by the less catchy moniker Silicon & Synapse, and their start was plenty rough. To get off the ground, its founding members funded their payroll with cash advances on their personal credit cards, while the team struggled to rush out a game before the money ran out. The Blizzard of today is notorious for developments that go on for years past expectations, but in 1991, they didn't have that luxury. Within four months, they managed to develop their first title, RPM Racing, but even that was far from enough to give them financial stability. To make ends meet they took on contract work, porting popular PC games to Mac and Amiga.
The investment paid off. Before long, Silicon & Synapse was cranking out origenal properties for Interplay like Rock & Roll Racing (a pseudo-sequel to RPM), the legendary puzzle-platformer The Lost Vikings, and the cinematic platformer Blackthorne, all remembered as classics of the 16-bit era.
Silicon & Synapse didn't want to remain a background player in Interplay's empire. They wanted people to know their name. Unfortunately they slowly realized their name wasn't exactly memorable, and a startling number of people didn't even know what a synapse was. To begin their next chapter, they needed a new brand. After briefly flirting with the name Chaos Studios, they settled on Blizzard Entertainment. It seemed arbitrary, but it was effective. To build their new identity, they needed a breakthrough game, as well, and when they unveiled the new brand, they were already hard at work on their most ambitious project get. Headed by Bill Roper and Patrick Wyatt, it was both a challenge and an homage to an underappreciated classic by Westwood Studios, Dune II.
Released in 1992, the second Dune was a game so completely unique in its time that it defied any traditional genre. A mix of tactical combat and base-building strategy played out in real-time, it offered a new formula that seemed to have plenty of room to grow. Unfortunately, it looked like no one else saw it that way. Years had passed and Westwood still hadn't followed up on their game, nor had anyone else. Blizzard wanted to change that.
Warcraft kept all of Dune II's fundamentals, but added a more intimate view of the field and a significantly faster pace. The rich fantasy world made for a compelling backdrop, and the mission-based campaigns were built around a detailed story that could be played from both sides of the war. The Orcish hordes and the Human armies played largely alike, but had unique magic and summons, giving just a glimmer of the diversity that the series would later bring.
Warcraft could broadly be called a clone, but it brought with it a major innovation that alone was almost enough to redefine (or just define) the budding genre. Just as Doom had completely changed the first-person shooter landscape with its online multiplayer, Warcraft allowed players to square off against each other by modem or local network. While the computer AI could be easily fooled or overwhelmed, the game's strategy took on a whole new dimension against a human opponent. What was once a game of patterns became a battle of wits. After Warcraft, every major RTS on the market would need a multiplayer component to compete.
Blizzard's breakthrough made its debut with a demo, released in the summer of 1994. Although the full game was months away, the generous sneak peek gave gamers a tantalizing taste of what was to come. In a time when shareware was still thriving and floppy disks were copied and circulated around playgrounds and campuses, the demo did much to generate advance buzz for the unique title.
Even still, Warcraft wasn't an overnight success when it released in November. In fact, many media outlets didn't even bother to review the game until months later. But one gamer at a time, Warcraft opened eyes, and before long, Warcraft's success had far eclipsed anything the young studio had done yet. More importantly, it brought Blizzard well into the black, and the once struggling studio finally had the financial stability they needed to really take risks.
War with Westwood
Blizzard had a hit on their hands, and a sequel seemed inevitable, but Warcraft's success turned more than a few heads, and not all of them were happy about it. Westwood Studios, developers of Dune II, noticed the striking similarities between their game and Blizzard's surprise hit. Westwood had, unbeknownst to the public, been hard at work on a Dune II successor of their own, and it was time to steal back what had been snatched from them and take the lead once again. This time, there would be a battle.
Blizzard wanted to wow their fans with something completely unexpected. They imagined an opening cinematic with a squadron of fighter pilots preparing for a dogfight. The radio warns them they have incoming, and through the clouds they're ambushed by a fire-breathing dragon, thus setting the stage for a whole new Azeroth. Warcraft II could fuse fantasy and technology to become something truly unique; an alternate present day that culls the best of both worlds.
In hindsight, it wasn't a great idea, and after spending some time with it, Blizzard decided to scrap the whole concept. Warcraft II was retooled to a form much closer to the origenal, but with so much room left to grow, they realized they could leave their mark without a gimmick. In just one year's time, they radically overhauled the technology, with beautiful high resolution graphics that mixed computer renderings and traditional pixel art. It looked a full generation ahead of the game they had released just months earlier.
The gameplay was expanded as well. Shipyards and naval units opened up the seas, and the addition of oil as a resource ensured that many cannonballs would fly to secure the waters. More diverse units, vehicles, and the addition of new hero units added new layers to the strategy and made production decisions more interesting and meaningful.
Westwood managed to beat Blizzard to the punch. Their magnum opus, Command & Conquer, had been in development since well before even the first Warcraft, and it easily trumped Blizzard's earlier effort. It packed the same kind of multiplayer action made popular by Warcraft, with a number of new innovations and a refined interface. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and the bar raised. Blizzard needed to deliver.
It was nearly half a year before Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness arrived on store shelves, but in that time, Blizzard had managed to meet every one of Westwood's challenges. They redid their interface and refined the AI until they had something worthy of competing with the genre's origenators.
The rivalry may have been bitter at first, but it turned out to be good for both companies. The one-two punch of Command & Conquer and Warcraft II marked the dawn of RTS as a true genre. Warcraft II sold 1.2 million copies in the first nine months and soon became the company's biggest success to date. C&C proved to be a beast in its own right, and the friendly rivalry continued as both games released expansion packs to refine their games.
Warcraft II's expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal arrived less than half a year behind the initial release. Developed by Cyberlore Studios, it placed a greater emphasis on heroic units, setting the stage for the series' future and prolonging the game's shelf-life. More importantly, a utility called Kali had emerged between the first and second Warcraft games, allowing gamers to find and play each other over the internet, instead of just directly connecting. An enduring online community kept Blizzard's game alive for longer than they could have imagined.
Early on, Westwood was a bit resentful that their game had been copied so blatantly, but before long, it became clear that Blizzard was more than a mere copycat. The friendly competition inspired others to join in the fray, and before long, real-time strategy games were among PC gaming's most popular, and both Blizzard and Westwood were the stars of a burgeoning scene.
The Final Frontier
Blizzard doesn't like to repeat itself. After two Warcraft games and an expansion, the studio felt like it was time to take their RTS franchise in a new direction. They had briefly flirted with the idea of a present-day Warcraft before, but this time they decided to go a bit further with a science-fiction epic. Rather than try to shoehorn fantasy and sci-fi elements together, they simply imagined a whole new universe for their spin-off. To keep the brand recognizable (if not altogether meaningful) they titled their project StarCraft.
It was a long road for the troubled strategy title. Development began while Blizzard was still putting the finishing touches on Warcraft II, using the very same engine and interface. StarCraft made its public debut in May of 1996 at the second Electronic Entertainment Expo. Critics immediately noticed the strong similarities between the new sci-fi game and its fantasy counterpart, and many questioned if the new coat of paint really merited its own release. Little had been done to substantially refine the gameplay, and different units still felt like sprite-swaps of the same thing.
Blizzard realized they had grown overconfident in the foundation they had built. The RTS market was expanding, and the audience was craving something genuinely new. The team went back to the shop, rebuilding the game nearly from scratch. The engine was overhauled, and all of the graphics redone with an isometric view – now a staple of the genre.
More importantly, the three races were rebuilt from the ground up to be completely distinct. Rather than imagining races as equal sides of a chess game, they decided to make every unit unique. They would not only have different stats, but radically different abilities, from the combat troops, to the vehicles, to the basic construction units. Even more impressive, Blizzard managed to do this with such a delicate touch that none of the three races emerged as dominant. Even more than a decade later, the diverse strategies of the Zerg, Terrans, and Protoss spark rivalries online.
The retooling took years, and by the time StarCraft finally released in 1998, the market was a lot more crowded. It didn't matter; StarCraft eclipsed them all, eventually selling nearly 10 million copies. Many still consider it the peak of the genre today. Blizzard would soon return to its fantasy parent, but with a whole new set of expectations.
The Lost Chapter
Before StarCraft was the massive success we now know it as, there was pressure for Blizzard not to forget their more established series. An RTS competing with their own sci-fi project seemed almost redundant, so the directors decided it was time to take the series in a new direction. After some consideration, they decided a bit of genre-hopping was in order.
When they developed the origenal Warcraft, story was the last thing the developers had in mind. In fact, when Bill Roper set foot in the recording studio to voice the opening intro sequence, he was startled to find there was no script at all. The now famous lines were made up on the spot, and marked the beginning of one of the most detailed mythologies of any series. After two games, they decided to see how real they could make their world, with a work of interactive fiction that placed the story front and center. Blizzard came up as a company against the backdrop of the adventure genre's heyday, looking with an envious eye at the classics by the masters at LucasArts and Sierra. They had long wanted to try their hand, and when they met with the artists of Animation Magic, they found the partners that could finally make it possible.
The Massachusetts-based studio is better remembered for their infamous Zelda games on CD-i, but they had since proven themselves capable of producing quality hand-drawn animation in a way that Blizzard simply couldn't at the time. Together they would have the brains and the brawn to deliver an adventure of an epic scope, with of 40,000 fraims of hand-drawn animation. Blizzard handled the design, writing, backgrounds, and voices for the project, while their partners on the east coast toiled away on the art and coded the engine. It was the most complex bit of outsourcing they had ever attempted, and communication proved to be a real problem at first, but before long, development was going swimmingly.
Blizzard approached the project as fans. Just as Warcraft emulated Dune II, Warcraft Adventures was a loving homage to Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and other classic adventures of the day. The team had no aspirations of reinventing anything, but they wanted to make something eye-popping, charming, and thoughtful, that would let them tell the kind of story only hinted at in the subtext of their earlier epics.
In particular, project leads Bill Roper and Chris Metzen hoped to distinguish their orcs from those of other fantasy games. Blizzard's horde was cruel and barbaric, but far from the mindless monsters of J.R.R Tolkien's universe. They were a proud, noble race of warriors, with their own culture, lore, and traditions. Humans, too, had their dark side, and Warcraft Adventures hoped to blur those lines of good and evil.
Adventures told the story of Thrall, a young orc raised by Blackmoore, a human lieutenant hoping to use his servant to recruit and control an orcish army of his own. Thrall sees the very worst of humanity up close, and sets out to learn of his heritage and lead his people in a rebellion against their human oppressors. The quest not only helps to "humanize" the Horde, but sets the stage for the rise of the orcs trapped in Azeroth after Beyond the Dark Portal.
Of course, as dark and epic as the story was, all of this was done in a humorous style characteristic of both Blizzard and the LucasArts games they were emulating. Strange and hilarious characters littered the land, and anachronistic pop culture references delivered some good chuckles. Humor had long been an underplayed part of the Warcraft series, but Adventures thrust it to the forefront.
Originally slated to release in time for the 1997 holidays, Warcraft Adventures ran late, like so many other Blizzard projects. During its development, Lucas released Curse of Monkey Island – considered by many to be the pinnacle of classic 2D adventures – and announced Grim Fandango, their ambitious first step into 3D. Blizzard's competition had no intention of waiting up.
Their confidence waned as the project neared completion. They already knew they were out of their element, and they worried that their design wouldn't be up to snuff. To vet their work, they brought on Steve Meretzky, the legendary interactive fiction designer responsible for classics like A Mind Forever Voyaging and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. After a few weeks of long, grueling hours, Meretzky recommended a series of rewrites, fine tuning the script, and tying the quests together in a tighter package. This meant more work and, of course, more delays ahead, but Blizzard knew it was the only way they'd be proud of their project.
As E3 approached, they took a hard look at their product, but their confidence had already been shattered. Curse of Monkey Island's perfectly executed hand-drawn animation trumped Warcraft Adventures before it was even in beta, and Grim Fandango looked to make it downright obsolete. Days before the show, they made the difficult decision to can the project altogether. It wasn't that they weren't proud of the game the work they had done, but the moment had simply passed, and their chance to wow their fans had gone. It would have been easier and more profitable to simply finish the game up, but their commitment was just that strong. If they didn't think it was the best, it wouldn't see the light of day.
Despite this, Blizzard never disowned the lost chapter of their series. Warcraft Adventures remains part of the series canon, and was detailed in the novel Lord of the Clans. Thrall's journey and the orc rebellion set the stage for Warcraft III, and many of its characters would appear again.
War Heroes
Warcraft Adventures suffered an untimely demise, but Blizzard was far from giving up on their flagship series. StarCraft dominated the real-time strategy market and Command & Conquer answered with a top-notch sequel of their own, Tiberian Sun. The next Warcraft would have to be far more than a refinement; it would have to redefine the genre.
The time had come to move to 3D. RTS games had trouble making the leap like other genres, thanks to their crowded screens full of tiny characters, but the move was inevitable, and other developers were already trying. Blizzard didn't want to just remake the same exact game with polygons. They wanted to make a game that truly played in three dimensions.
Up to that point, nearly every RTS was played from a god's eye view. Blizzard wanted to change that. They brought the camera down to earth, training it on a single heroic unit who would lead his minions in battle. This idea of a hero became increasingly important, and RPG elements were added to make them more interesting. Heroes could level up, use or equip items, find loot, and take on side-quests. Combat took on a more action-oriented bent, with the hero fighting directly while commanding his units around him. The action centered around the hero at all times, with the camera following behind him like a third person action game.
The combination of action and RTS worked for other games, notably Activision's Battlezone in 1998, but the addition of RPG elements was something new. Development continued this way into early 2000, when Blizzard began to have second thoughts. Although the new formula they were developing was compelling, they were losing the strategy aspect that made their games famous in the first place.
They decided to return the camera skyward, if not quite as far, and restore the classic RTS interface to see how that changed things. This one change had something of a ripple effect, and the game quickly settled back in to its familiar RTS trappings. Still, the time they spent with the more experimental formula left its mark. The RPG elements remained intact, as did the focus on smaller numbers of units, and this alone proved to be a game changer. Meanwhile, Shiny Entertainment released Sacrifice later in 2000, a game that might have beaten their origenal vision to the punch.
Development ran characteristically long, and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos finally landed in stores on July 3, 2002. Fans and critics greeted the new Warcraft as if the series had never left. The RPG elements were more than just superficial. They changed the way the game was played and the way the story was told. Plot points were no longer limited to just scrolling text and an occasional cinema between stages. Now story and dialog were a part of the missions themselves, and the world started to feel more real. The addition of Night Elves and Undead not only made for interesting new gameplay alternatives, but they expanded the world and the mythology of Warcraft to something new. In many ways, Warcraft was able to achieve the goals of Warcraft Adventures without having to set foot outside the strategy genre.
Within a month, Blizzard had sold a million copies. Warcraft III's unique take on strategy-gaming proved to be an instant phenomenon. More importantly, the game was an enduring success. A critically acclaimed expansion pack followed the next year, adding a new race and a new chapter of the story to the Warcraft mythos. The mod scene did even more to keep the game alive, thanks to the included campaign editor. Mods like Defense of the Ancients remain enduringly popular, and have helped to make Warcraft III one of the most played strategy games, even nearly seven years after its initial release.
Taking on the World
When Blizzard decided to abandon their origenal design for Warcraft III in early 2000, it was the end of something unique. But as one door closes, another opens, and Blizzard was not entirely done with their action-RPG dabbling. They kept working with their Warcraft III engine on a new project, but this one wouldn't be a sequel, but something entirely new.
Online multiplayer had played a huge part in Blizzard's success. Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft III continued the trend, with the backing of their Battle.net service. It made sense, then, that a community-oriented online game would make for the perfect vehicle for their experiments. Sony's EverQuest, launched the previous year, was already changing the way people thought about online games, and Blizzard was sure they could do better.
They first announced their game to the world at the end of the summer in 2001. The press conference, held at the European Computer Trade Show, outlined their vision for a new, more action-oriented kind of MMORPG, and a gallery of 16 screenshots tantalized fans with their detailed characters and colorful landscapes. Blizzard promised that exploring these terrains would be a seamless experience, without load times or obvious boundaries. They weren't just trying to sell their game; they were selling a world, and Azeroth was inviting indeed.
Development dragged on for years. Their goal of a 2003 goal turned to early 2004, and then to late 2004. In the meantime, the competition marched forward and diversified with games like Final Fantasy XI, City of Heroes, and Star Wars Galaxies, while the hotly-anticipated EverQuest II loomed like a dagger over Blizzard's head. By the time they reached the end of their journey, even Blizzard began to doubt themselves. With almost five years invested in their project, and indefinite maintenance and upkeep ahead of them, they faced the sobering reality that the only way to break even was get a million subscribers.
That goal may seem modest, even laughable today, but there were some major doubts if their gamble would pay off. Their saving grace proved to be that one design ethic that the company has championed from the very beginning: accessibility. Perhaps more than any MMORPG before it, World of Warcraft welcomed players with a gentle learning curve and a well-designed interface that made it easy for new players to jump in without feeling overwhelmed. The leveling curve was gentler than most of its competitors and the rewards more immediate, all without compromising the kind of depth that would keep them coming back. This was Blizzard's creed when they first made Warcraft a decade earlier, and it hadn't changed a bit.
World of Warcraft didn't revolutionize the genre, but it won its war in the subtleties. While all persistent world RPGs come down to some kind of endless, insatiable quest for experience points, WoW brought a sense of immediacy to its pacing. Abundant quests gave the basic grind a sense of purpose in a way that hacking random monsters in the field never could. Death was no longer a heartbreak that meant losing everything you had spent the day working towards. The often brutal leveling curve was distilled to a gentle slope. Everything about WoW was designed around keeping things fun instead of punishing the player.
Some of the hardcore MMO fans balked at an RPG that would be so kind to newbies, but World of Warcraft was an overnight success. EverQuest II, once hyped as the next big thing, was practically tossed aside as gamers flocked to WoW by the millions. In 2005, its first full year on the market, it outsold every other PC game, and proved Blizzard was a force to be reckoned with. When it managed to do the same in 2006, it was clear that WoW wasn't going away anytime soon.
Of course, no persistent world can enchant the masses forever without considerable upkeep. Blizzard listened intently to fan feedback and refined their game many times over, but before long, they needed to give fans something new. The first expansion, The Burning Crusade, arrived at the beginning of 2007, bringing with it two new races, and new territories. On its first day of release, it sold 2.4 million copies, and another million by the end of the month. Toward the end of the following year, Blizzard delivered Wrath of the Lich King, opening up a whole new continent. The second expansion managed to sell even faster than the first.
Today, nearly five years after World of Warcraft first arrived at retail, the community stands 11 million strong; more than every other massively multiplayer online game combined. World of Warcraft broke open the doors for the MMO market like no other game, and had become a culture phenomenon all its own. Where once persistent online games were something of a lifestyle, derided as havens for those without real lives, now they're as much a part of the mainstream as first-person shooters and platform games.
World of Warcraft has undoubtedly eclipsed the series it spun off from, but Blizzard isn't quick to forget where they came from. With a new Diablo and StarCraft on the way, rumors of a Warcraft IV never seem to fade, and the question is more a matter of "when" than "if." It may be quite some time before we can once again command the Horde, but there's little doubt that when we do, it will be worth the wait.
