‘It’s just not that fun anymore’
I’m not one for needless remasters of titles that you can still buy. To me, they almost make me feel stupid for investing so much money and faith in a developer. The Uncharted remaster, especially, is just plain better than the originals, no matter how you slice it. That sucks.
Still, some fans of classic games would like Blizzard to tackle a remaster of the first two titles in the Warcraft series, due to Diablo III getting an update with content from the first Diablo. I can respect that, as Warcraft was one of the most important PC games ever made, not to mention the ancestor to the largest MMO around. Blizzard doesn’t have plans to do so, however.
Again, that is something I can respect, but the reasoning behind their decision is baffling. At Blizzcon this past weekend, a fan questioned Blizzard co-founder, Frank Pearce, on the possibility of a remaster and he said there were no plans at the time.
“We had some dedicated folks that were passionate about the idea, dig up the Warcraft 1 assets and code,” Pearce stated. “They got it working and they got it running in a window. And I played it. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was awesome for its time. I promise you, in today’s world, by today’s standards, it’s just not that fun any more.”
That is where I take issue. I always have a problem when people claim that older games aren’t fun unless you have nostalgia goggles. There are still plenty of older titles I enjoy despite having only just played them this year (Final Fantasy III being one of them). Maybe Frank is right with Warcraft, but there are still fans out there that would pay money to experience the original. You have nothing to lose, other than some development time.
Then again, Frank did mention that Blizzard has limited resources and would rather dedicate those to Overwatch and World of Warcraft…though I don’t even know if I buy that. WoW has been raking in billions of dollars over the years, so why couldn’t you outsource a remaster to another company? You also have microtransactions out the wazoo in Overwatch, so that has to be generating enough cash to employ somebody.
Blizzard isn’t planning to remaster Warcraft 1 and 2 [Eurogamer]
