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Warcraft Retrospective 23: Darth Arthas

Undead campaign

Last time, we stopped at the shocking twist of an undead-looking Arthas returning to Lordaeron and killing his father, cementing his fall to darkness. And please hear me out: this might be an unpopular opinion, but while the human campaign was a compelling story, I don’t think its epilogue, specifically, was executed that well.

Sure, by the end of the campaign, Arthas fell to extreme “ends justify the means” thinking, but he still committed all these atrocities in the name of saving the people of Lordaeron from the Scourge — because he thought he was the only one willing to what it took. Everyone, and everything, was expendable in the name of victory over the undead, and sickness was to be purged. He was a Scarlet Crusader before there was a Scarlet Crusade. A well-intentioned extremist. He was Redcloak, having gone too far to save his people to stop now.

At the end of the campaign, he was not Darth Vader.

Actually, speaking of Darth Vader, there’s a similar problem with his story in the prequels.

Warcraft Retrospective 22: To Atrocity and Beyond

Before I continue, I should, once again, praise the music in Warcraft 3. The human theme perfectly captures how the Alliance sees itself: as a bastion of order, majesty and valor. Even if — as we know, and are about to see once again — it doesn’t always quite live up to these ideals.

Warcraft Retrospective 19: Exodus of the Horde, Part One

All right! Let’s start Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, and play through all the campaigns, in order. If you want to see a video review of the campaigns, I recommend this one by GiantCrabGames, which covers both the base game and the Frozen Throne expansion in amazing detail, while also focusing on what makes the Warcraft 3 gameplay captivating.

Warcraft Retrospective 18: Reign of Chaos Manual, the Newcomers

Today we’re looking at the rest of the Reign of Chaos manual, the factions we’ll be seeing for the first time: the undead Scourge, night elf Sentinels, and demonic Burning Legion. The latter is a pure antagonist unplayable faction, though they were planned as playable at one point in Warcraft 3 development.

Warcraft Retrospective 15: Lord of the Clans

A year before the release of Warcraft 3, Blizzard faced a problem. Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, the adventure game that was supposed to bridge Warcraft 2 and 3, was canceled. Its lore, however, was too important to simply discard, as it set up the orc storyline in Warcraft 3. Therefore, Blizzard commisioned a novel adaptation of the game’s scrapped plot. After the first author failed to finish it, Christie Golden was brought in, with only six weeks to write the novel based on Chris Metzen’s plot outline.