Update February 3: It appears that Blizzard is hearing user complaints about WarCraft 3: Reforged. Reddit users are reporting that they have been able to receive automatic refunds "no questions asked" for the game, so if you paid for a copy yourself and are unhappy you could at least get your money back. Unfortunately, even if you get your refund, the new Reforged experience has still replaced much of the original WarCraft 3 on Battle.net. We'll have to wait and see how Blizzard addresses those concerns.
Original story, February 1: Warcraft 3: Reforged has become the worst user-scored game on Metacritic.
Though only released a few days ago, Reforged has catapulted to the bottom of the charts, gathering 14,852 ratings at the time of writing from players giving an "overwhelming dislike" aggregated user score of just 0.5 out of a possible 10. Ouch.
First announced at Blizzcon 2018, Reforged was touted as a full-scale remaster of the classic RTS Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and the Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne expansion. Featuring seven single-player campaigns to work your way through over 60 missions, the remaster also includes updated matchmaking features using Battle.net's online service.
As reported by VGC, fan feedback has mostly been critical that the game doesn't meet expectations and lacks basic features such as ladders and clans. Despite pledging upgraded graphics, UI, cut-scenes, and voice performances, some players maintain they don't see much difference from the 2002 original, leaving them feeling Blizzard hasn't quite delivered the “complete reimagining” it had promised.
On top of the complaints about the quality of the remaster, players are currently plagued with technical woes too, with users complaining of connectivity issues, as well as bugs and glitches.
"Apparently the Blizzard logo is no longer an indicator of quality. Congratulations," lamented one player, whilst another said: "I have never reviewed a game before but the fact that I can no longer play the game I've had for so long is insufferable. What were you thinking! Especially since now any custom maps or game modes I pour my work into don't belong to me this is ridiculous. On top of that I have yet to be able to get into a campaign since the update no matter how much I google I can't find any help."
It's not all universally bad, though.
"On the third missions [sic] in the campaign and already addicted just as I was when the game originally released," said one of the 200+ positive reviews. "You know you have another gem when you can't turn off the game even after mythic/LFR Ny'alotha come out on the same day! Way to go Blizz!!!"
Warcraft 3 follows in the footsteps of other Blizzard titles such as Starcraft that have recently received a modernizing lick of paint. As a recreation of the original 2002 strategy game, "Reforged takes you back to a tumultuous time in Azeroth's history, when a dark shadow eclipsed a peaceful land, the world trembled before the coming Burning Legion, and heroes risked it all to prevent the death of their world".
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