Blizzard’s World of Warcraft MMORPG was launched after Warcraft 3, and so pretty much all the events of the MMORPG more or less take place after Warcraft 3, which helped set the tone and introduced us to the journey where Arthas, a righteous paladin and through a series of actions and decisions, ended up being the Lich King.
Now World of Warcraft has more or less grown into its own thing, and it seems that Blizzard will be taking some of what they’ve learnt and created and apply it to Warcraft 3: Reforged. This is according to a report from Kotaku where during an interview with executive producer Chris Sigaty and QA lead Nicholas Louie at BlizzCon 2018, it was revealed that Warcraft 3: Reforged would be making some references to the World of Warcraft game.
An example would be in The Culling mission, where it shows Arthas making the decision to purge the entire city of Stratholme with its plague-struck citizens. Stratholme eventually became one of the dungeons in World of Warcraft, and so in Warcraft 3: Reforged, the area was redesigned to mimic the dungeon’s layout.
Louie notes that these references will also be made to characters in the game. “We’re also looking to flesh out characters that… we were unaware they were gonna blow up. Characters like Sylvanas [Windrunner] and Jaina [Proudmoore]. In the events of Warcraft III, they’re not these huge, pivotal characters. It’s important to us that we bring them into parity with their presence in WoW in terms of importance. Their characterization time, their big character moments.”
Warcraft 3: Reforged will be a remaster of the original Warcraft 3 and its expansion. It is set for a release next year. Blizzard had also previously confirmed that they do not have plans for a Warcraft 4 at the moment, which means that Warcraft 3: Reforged is as close as we can get to playing the RTS again.