Warcraft III May be Coming to Blizzard's Battle.net Launcher

[Steven Bogos]

Warcraft III May be Coming to Blizzard's Battle.net Launcher

Could this be to promote an impending Warcraft IV announcement? I certainly hope so.

Blizzard's Battle.net launcher is a pretty great client, and easy way to keep track of all your Blizzard games. Unfortunately, Blizzard's older legacy titles, such as Diablo II and Warcraft III, do not yet enjoy compatibility with the platform. However, the latest Battle.net launcher update has of course already been data-mined by the boys and girls over at MMO Champion [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4373-Battle-Net-Launcher-Warcraft-III-Beta-Build-Warlords-Bonus-Rolls-Treasure-Room-Battle-Net-Launcher-Warcraft-III-Beta-Build-Warlords-Bonus-Rolls-Treasure-Room], and they have turned up two interesting new images, which you can see right here:

These images look strikingly similar to the icons and background images currently in use for all other Battle.net launcher games, which makes it fairly certain that Warcraft III's release on the launcher is on the way. The real question is, what does it mean?

Is it just Blizzard trying to fully update its entire library, and can we expect the likes of Diablo II, Warcraft II and StarCraft to follow? Or is it a lead up to something bigger, say, the announcement of Warcraft IV we've all been waiting for...

Titan Blizzard's "not-so-secret" secret MMO project was recently announced to have been cancelled [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137608-Blizzard-Cancels-Titan-MMO-After-Seven-Years], which should have freed up resources to work on other titles (although we don't really have an idea of how long it had been since the title was cancelled, and the cancellation was officially announced).

Source: MMO Champion [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4373-Battle-Net-Launcher-Warcraft-III-Beta-Build-Warlords-Bonus-Rolls-Treasure-Room-Battle-Net-Launcher-Warcraft-III-Beta-Build-Warlords-Bonus-Rolls-Treasure-Room]

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[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Oh please let there be a Warcraft IV....

 

[Ferisar]

Please be Warcraft 4 Please be Warcraft 4 Please be Warcraft 4 Please be Warcraft 4 Pls Chris Metzen I will sell myself into your Q/A system for free. You can actually lock me in with your servers with no air conditioning. Or food.

Or air.

Please.


I just wanna

I pls wanna just pls.

If I sound like I want something, it's probably because I want something.

Oh and yeah WC3 on the client would mean I would click it more often.

PLS.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Oh man I'd love a New Warcraft game. I mean I like Starcraft and all but fantasy is more my jam rather than science fiction.

 

[dragongit]

Warcraft 4 isn't going to be announced unless they either put a gigantic gap between story bits with Warlords of Draenor and whatever the next expansion is, or end WoW all together. It's already bad enough when they put story content in books and comics that force you to buy stuff outside of the MMO, let alone Warcraft 4.

It's just WC3 and Frozen throne, meerly a means to access it quicker since you can already add these games to Battlenet accounts. I'm sure D2 will follow and the rest.

 

[Mezahmay]

Oh man, D2 and WC3 on BattleNet client. I happy. Hopefully the games will work properly on a modern OS.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Warcraft 4 isn't going to be announced unless they either put a gigantic gap between story bits with Warlords of Draenor and whatever the next expansion is, or end WoW all together. It's already bad enough when they put story content in books and comics that force you to buy stuff outside of the MMO, let alone Warcraft 4.

Yeah, was wondering how they could do that.

Was weird enough going from 2 to 3, without playing the expansion of 2.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Cool.
I'd also love a version of WarCraft I and II playable on a modern OS. I've been itching to replay them, but DOSBox and Windows 8 don't see eye to eye on much.

 

[maxben]

Warcraft 4 isn't going to be announced unless they either put a gigantic gap between story bits with Warlords of Draenor and whatever the next expansion is, or end WoW all together. It's already bad enough when they put story content in books and comics that force you to buy stuff outside of the MMO, let alone Warcraft 4.

It's just WC3 and Frozen throne, meerly a means to access it quicker since you can already add these games to Battlenet accounts. I'm sure D2 will follow and the rest.

To be honest, a WC4 that merely rehashes the story of WoW in a traditional RTS setting (and also clarifies, simplifies, and sets it in stone). Make a proper story out of BC and WotLK and I'm there.

 

[VanQ]

It means they're adding Warcraft 3 and its expansion to the launcher. It doesn't mean anything else let alone Warcraft 4.

 

[Aeshi]

Too bad my Frozen Throne CD key doesn't work any more. I wouldn't mind getting back into WC3.

I wonder if (Winter)Maul & Pyramid Escape are still a thing, I really enjoyed those.

 

[cikame]

It could just be a developer of the launcher did the work and put those images in there in case it does release on it, like if Half-Life 3 appeared in code on Steam, doesn't mean it's in active developement, just means someone coded it in case it is in the future.

 

[Kahani]

The latest version of the launcher allows you to add any Blizzard games to it so you can launch them from there (although god knows why you'd want to). Presumably these are the icons it uses if you happen to add Warcraft 3.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

Warcraft 4 isn't going to be announced unless they either put a gigantic gap between story bits with Warlords of Draenor and whatever the next expansion is, or end WoW all together. It's already bad enough when they put story content in books and comics that force you to buy stuff outside of the MMO, let alone Warcraft 4.

What they could do is have Warcraft 4's plot run parallel to WoW's earlier expansions. For instance, what were the Alliance and Horde doing on Azeroth while players were running around on Draenor during BC? Alternately, they could cover what the armies were up to during Wrath of the Lich King.

 

[Starbolt-81]

If Blizzard is simply adding its back catalogue to the launcher, perhaps with the intent of adding support to make them more modern PC friendly (none of them are built with widescreen support for example), then I welcome this.

It would be a logical move, given that the collectors editions of both Starcraft II and Diablo III both came with novelty USB sticks with their predecessors (and their expansion packs) pre-loaded, and you can still walk into a games store right now and find the Warcraft III battle chest for sale.