Warcraft II: Reforged might be in the works at Blizzard

Blizzard is getting ready to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise, and it seems like the company has something special in store for fans. According to recent leaks, the developer is working on a remaster of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the second game in the long-running real-time strategy series.

The news comes from two independent sources. First up is Blizztracker, a service that monitors changes to Blizzard’s games and servers. The site received an entry dubbed “Warcraft II: Remastered Internal Alpha” earlier today.

Around the same time, prominent Blizzard data miner Stiven managed to dig up a key art image for the remaster from the company’s servers. The art depicts a pair of ships, suggesting that Blizzard is revisiting the game’s naval combat.

“Warcraft II Remastered !!! :D,” Stiven tweeted, sharing the image.

The original Warcraft II, launched in December 1995, is set in the high-fantasy world of Azeroth. Players command one of two factions in the game’s single-player campaign — the human Alliance or the orcish Horde — to defend their base and ultimately destroy the enemy.

While Warcraft II is a beloved part of the series’ history, it also has some fairly dated systems. If Warcraft III: Reforged is anything to go by, the remaster will ideally bring modern quality-of-life improvements to the title’s campaign and multiplayer modes.

That said, we might be waiting a while before we get our hands on Warcraft II: Remastered. Blizztracker notes that the “Internal Alpha” entry is marked as “leak,” suggesting that the game is still in the early stages of development and might not see a 2024 release.

Blizzard might officially announce Warcraft II: Remastered as part of its upcoming Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct event, scheduled for next Saturday, November 13th. The company has teased “multiple surprises” for the show, so don’t be surprised if we get other Warcraft-related news.