Warcraft III Single Player

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Release: July 3, 2002
Warcraft III official home page: http://www.blizzard.com/war3/

Single Player

Over the last several months, eager RTS fans have been inundated with articles about Warcraft III’s multiplayer aspect, thanks to the ongoing beta test. While debates have raged about multiplayer balance, and much is known about the units and races, little has been revealed about the single player campaign. Far from being a simple set of “build up and kill everything on the map” type missions, the Warcraft III solo campaign will truly help the game live up to the “role playing strategy” label. The developers have worked hard to make the campaigns much more immersive in terms of plot; they’ve got a couple of surprises up their sleeves in terms of mission design.

Slave Master must die!

Meeting of the minds

Small scrum

The first thing we noticed while playing through the first few levels of the human campaign is the extensive use of the in-game engine for lush cinematics and dialogue. The camera zooms in closer to give the player better detail and feel for the characters as they converse with one another and reveal the game’s storyline. The cut scenes using the in-game engine are frequent, and short dialogue sequences during the missions are even more frequent.

The first mission starts off with the player’s Paladin, Arthas (son of King Terenas), talking to Uther Pendragon, a character you may remember from the Warcraft II expansion. The Orcs have invaded Human territories again, and word has just been received that they’re rampaging in a nearby village. Artheas (the player) is sent off to aid the human village, while Uther runs off to find the Orc encampments. The camera zooms out, the quest log interface comes up telling you what the primary objective is, and that there are a couple of secondary objectives that haven’t been revealed. You are then left to explore the map, and complete your objectives, which will usually be highlighted for you on the minimap

A closer view

Tauren Chieftain and grunts

That's quite a pile of skulls

As you move through the map toward the besieged town, you come across numerous NPCs in the map. Exploration of these side areas is encouraged, as you’ll come across NPCs who may converse with you and give you side quests that you can undertake for special items. For instance, in that first human mission you’ll find a human family just off the main path whose child has been kidnapped by gnolls. The estimated location of the gnoll encampment highlights in the minimap, and the quest log gets updated with the details of the side quest you’ve just unlocked. Rescuing the child and bringing him back to his mother results in a reward of a special item for your hero’s inventory.

In another example you see a man calling for help in the woods off to the side of the path. As you bring your party of Footmen over to the man, he changes outfits and turns into a highway bandit, as his fellow bandits close in from the woods and surround your men. An ambush! These types of encounters were fairly frequent in the missions we played at E3, and give more of a sense of depth and life to the maps you play in. It only scratches the surface of what Warcraft III has to offer, but these examples are indicative that the single player won’t be 20 different ways of building up and beating down entrenched enemies.

The Slave Master

Frost Wyrm fleet

There are 32 missions in Warcraft III, and the plot is presented sequentially through the eyes of the game’s four playable races, Human, Orc, Night Elf, and Undead. Though there isn’t much jumping around between the races, players are given a good sense of continuity as they will be running into heroes later in the game that they played as in earlier parts of the campaign. At times, you may be forced to fight against those same heroes you used! Experience and items you find for your heroes carry over from mission to mission, but since you’ll be switching over to other races as the campaign wears on, you won’t be using the same few heroes for the entire 30+ missions.

There will also be a lot of new tilesets in the single player campaign that aren’t in the multiplayer beta. For example, the tileset for the start of the Orc campaign features a tropical island feel, with an ocean tide that washes waves upon the shore. These new environments will also have entire new sets of creeps and NPCs for players to fight and interact with. With so many levels in the game, we can be sure to see a wide variety of environments throughout the single player campaign.