Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest was announced by Blizzard and dropped the same day. It is now the ultimate way to play the RTS trilogy that kickstarted World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Warcraft Rumble. With Warcraft 3 remembered as the crown jewel of the trilogy and being the catalyst behind the MOBA genre, gamers owe a lot to the original RTS games, but do the remasters still hold up after so many decades?

Story

Warcraft’s story is one of the best told stories in gaming, and the trilogy does a brilliant job of highlighting the entire story in one price. Warcraft 1 and 2 were often overlooked and today they still offer a good story to be told. Starting with the opening of The Dark Portal that began the Orc invasion into Azerorth where the fights began with humans, dwarves, gnomes,. and going all the way to the Lich King story.

There is too much story to tell here, and it is better to explore it for yourself and play the game, espeically if you are a fan of RTS games and Warcraft.

Previously the only way to play the original games was through emulation and surviving the massively outdated graphics and praying you did not get visual or audio bugs, but with the battle chest, you can now experience the original Warcraft story and all of its expansions in higher resolution, better audio, native Windows support, and other features that will make the experience feel like a brand new game.

You wil have to learn to live with some of the older visual styles of Warcraft 1 and 2, but both games are well-worth the patience.

Gameplay

The game is your run of the mill RTS. You go through the campaign through various factions and as you switch perspectives from being the hero to villain, you understand the finer parts of the backstory behind major events that take place in World of Warcraft, you will see a lot of familiar faces along the way, and maybe learn a good history lesson or two about the world that you may have missed by not playing the original titles or their expansions.

The gameplay is relatively the same btut the new gameplay here is the smooth FPS that also accounts for high refresh rate, stronger visuals, and better audio quality.

This is your typical remaster treatment, all of the old assets have been repurposed to improve the present package and this is now the definitive way to play the Warcraft trilogy.

Outside of the normal game, there are also multiplayer options in Warcraft 2 and 3, with custom scenarios and more if you want to play with friends or with other people online.

Verdict

This is a fantastic remaster at a near perfect price. At $39.99 I feel this was a good purchase for anyone who is a fan of the Warcraft IP and also a fan of RTS games. It is a fantastic way to find out the roots of World of Warcraft and other games in the universe, to learn more about the backstory of your favorite characters, and more.

With polished visuals, improved audio, multiplayer, and the ability to play this in smoother framerate, with native windows compatibility, this is easily the best bang for your buck if you are looking to take a trip down memory lane.