Warcraft III and StarCraft II are both real-time strategy, or RTS, games that were released in 2002 and 2010 respectively. With the release of Warcraft III modding assets for the StarCraft II engine, Blizzard is giving modders the tools to create a “Warcraft IV” to call their own.
Modders have been building their own Warcraft RTS using the StarCraft II engine without official assets for a while, but now, over 3,000 materials are at the modding community’s fingertips to recreate and relive updated Warcraft III experiences. Thanks to Blizzard they can finally realize their dreams of these long-sought-after experiences or choose to create all-new experiences. New hero models for the four primary races (humans, orcs, night elves, and undead) in addition to the original models and sounds for neutral creatures, structures, spell effects, ambient music, and custom user interfaces are available to use in the StarCraft II Arcade Public Test Realm.
Blizzard’s announcement on Battle.net encourages the Arcade modding community to showcase their best:
We are so excited to see what our community is going to make that we wanted to give you a head start. Once these assets become available to the public, we are going to spotlight the best content in what we are calling, “Memories of War.” The PTR [Public Test Realm] is your chance to start playing with your new tools and to start making amazing experiences.
Warcraft IV may not officially be in the works at Blizzard, but the mod possibilities for a fan-made version are brimming and may even be an indication of Warcraft predecessors becoming more readily playable on modern PCs in the near future. In the meantime, this modding gift from Blizzard will hopefully make the continued wait more bearable.