Rewind – Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
Blizzard definiately knows what it takes to put out successful expansions. Which is an interesting concept, because the whole notion of expansions has pretty much died of . . . but that’s a whole different conversation. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne was released just a year after the original Warcraft III game and it continues on shortly after where the original left off. It makes use of one of the best aspects of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Such a large, vibrant world had been expounded upon with so much going on and so many characters, that not every single created item was concluded. Yes, there was a main story arc with a stunning conclusion, but there were so many other people that left you wondering what had happened with them.
The main campaign takes lets you take turns playing as the Sentinels, Alliance, and Scourge. However, the narrative has gotten so deep, each of these factions has split into separate sub-factions. The Night Elves which comprise the Sentinels are trying to clean up the mess left over from the end of the last game, but lies, deceit, and unlikely alliances are the underlying themes. The Alliance campaign is largely played out by the Blood Elves. After the majority of the High Elves were slaughtered by the plague/scourge, the remaining members of their race adopted the new name Blood Elves in honor of all their murdered compatriots. Even though this campaign is titles “Alliance”, it really has more to do with the Blood Elves breaking away from the Alliance (as well they should given how they were treated . . . but, by naming yourselves Blood Elves, it seems there really was only one way to go). Lastly, the scourge campaign is largely related to the continued journey, progress of Arthas who manages to control some of the scourge with the help of the Lich King, while other parts of the scourge remain loyal to the Burning Legion.
Once again, Blizzard manages to tell an exciting narrative without completely closing the door on the future. In hindsight, it is amazing how great of a job the game does setting up for World of Warcraft. Other factions/races that play predominantly in the future are all given “origin stories” per se about how they came to their current state of being.
The only strange thing about the game is the Orc campaign. It doesn’t really fit within the main narrative and is instead labelled as a sort of bonus (but unrelated) campaign. Why this happened isn’t completely clear. There is lots of talks about how the Orcs just didn’t fit well in the main narrative so this was done to be inclusive. One reason why I don’t think that can be the only reason is that the Orc campaign is completely different than the rest of the game. You take control of just a few hero units, and are sent on many mundane and tedious quests. Some have likened it to being more like World of Warcraft, but that is a generous statement. From a narrative standpoint, it does setup the current state of the Alliance and Horde factions at the start of World of Warcraft. I just have no idea why the made this campaign so mind-numbingly tedious. Sure, the various quests showing how the various Horde factions were aligned were fine enough, but this campaign would really be so much better if the cut it to 1/4-1/3 of its current length. This isn’t the main campaign. There is no need to drag this out.
Excluding the Orc campaign, the rest of the game continues the brilliance of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. The formula worked, so there was no need to change it. With most of the in-game assets already made, Blizzard was able to crank out a great sequel in not a whole lot of time. It’s interesting because for years after World of Warcraft was released, including multiple expansions, the main content directly came from characters and things that happened in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. It’s hard to believe that at this point, this franchise was still just getting started.