News regardingWarcraft 3 Reforged, the remastered version of the classic multiplayer real-time strategy game, has been thin in recent months. Outside of the game’sannouncement at BlizzCon 2018, the only events have been esports tournaments featuring an alpha version of the game. But a new leak indicatingWarcraft 3 Reforged’s closed beta may be live hints that big news could be near. All eyes point to BlizzCon 2019 for the next step inWarcraft 3 Reforged’s development.
The leak comes from a datamine of a newWarcraft 3 Reforgedclient on Blizzard’s CDN (content delivery network). The datamine revealed what appears to be the final, or nearly the final version of theWarcraft 3 Reforgedclient and menu system. This includes the opening menu, settings, as well as options for joining a Versus match and starting a replay. The Campaign, Custom matches, and a Collection section remain darkened and unavailable.
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Speculation assumes that this leak indicatesWarcraft 3 Reforged’s closed betais soon to start, if it hasn’t already begun in a limited capacity. The fact that Versus and Replays, the two modes that must be enabled for a multiplayer beta, are included in the client very heavily supports this theory. And if any further information was needed, several files within the client reference a looming beta, with filenames including “w3_beta” or “W3_PRERELEASE_MESSAGE”.
Taking the leak and subsequent speculation to its natural conclusion, many also believe thatWarcraft 3Reforged’s full launch might be just a matter of weeks of way.BlizzCon 2019 starts Friday, November 1, making it the perfect event for Blizzard to debut the full game at. Alternatively, theWarcraft 3 Reforgedbeta client update went out a bit early and Blizzard is planning to launch the full beta at BlizzCon 2019. Either way, excitedWarcraft 3fans are certain to have news to look forward too soon.
Some are questioning the timing of this leak, with reference to Blizzard’s recent controversy. Yesterday Blizzard released a statement regarding its punishment ofBlitzchung, a proHearthstonestreamer, who has been suspended for voicing pro-Hong Kong sentiment on an official broadcast, as well as two casters. Despite the poor timing, it seems unlikely that Blizzard developers would time a content push for those reasons. The teams are likely preparing for BlizzCon, and really there’s not going to be any better time to start preparing.
Warcraft 3 Reforgedhas no current release window and is coming to PC.
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