Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003)

The first campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne returns to the Night Elves, but with some quirky, campaign-specific units. You get things like the Sentry—basically an Archer reskin using the Spirit of Vengeance model that can cast Bloodlust—and Owlbears with Stomp. There’s also naval gameplay, including Frigates straight out of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.

One standout mission is the Broken Isles. It’s structured around small, optional islands you can tackle in any order—hydra dens, murloc villages, and so on. It feels like an early blueprint for World of Warcraft.

The campaign then shifts into a dungeon crawl, where collecting all 10 fragments of Gul’dan’s orb is brutally difficult without a guide. The level is packed with hidden corners, but it does reward exploration with atmospheric touches—like flashbacks of Gul'dan and the discovery of his headless corpse (a nod to the Skull of Gul’dan).

Most missions are mechanically straightforward, though they often split your attention between multiple hero groups and bases. Unlike Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, you frequently control three heroes at once. The final mission forces you to use Naga units, which feel underdeveloped and not particularly fun compared to earlier options (mass Wyverns being a personal highlight).

Narratively, the story is surprisingly underwhelming. Illidan Stormrage seeks the Eye of Sargeras to supposedly threaten Northrend. Maiev Shadowsong pursues him, involving Malfurion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind—but after Illidan saves Tyrande, everything is quickly forgiven. Considering you’ve just stopped him from potentially devastating Northrend, the resolution feels hollow.

The second campaign follows the Blood Elves under Kael'thas Sunstrider. Their story revolves around human mistreatment and their addiction to magic after the Sunwell’s destruction by Arthas Menethil.

Gameplay-wise, Spellbreakers are the stars—essentially a Human equivalent of Dryads: magic-immune, with dispel and mana burn. Dragonhawk Riders are highly specialized, useful for disabling towers or countering Frost Wyrms. Since Blood Elves lack heavy melee units, they compensate with Naga.

The dungeon missions lean heavily on one tactic: wall enemies with Spellbreakers and drop Flamestrike on top, exploiting their magic immunity. It works, but gets repetitive fast.

Then there’s the surprise “DotA-style” mission—heroes only, with auto-spawning armies fighting over Illidan. It’s a clear precursor to Defense of the Ancients.

My main issue with this campaign is how gimmicky it becomes. Some enemies, like Nether Dragons, are designed to counter both physical and magical damage, leaving them with effectively no weakness. I ended up brute-forcing solutions—going into High Upkeep and massing Dragonhawk Riders, basically playing it like StarCraft.

The Undead campaign shifts focus back to Arthas as the Lich King weakens. Meanwhile, Sylvanas Windrunner gains independence. Her gameplay revolves heavily around Possess—powerful, but one-dimensional.

There’s noticeable power creep. While Reign of Chaos capped heroes and creeps at level 10, here enemies go up to level 15. Arthas, meanwhile, gets periodically weakened to reflect the Lich King’s decline.

Despite this, the missions are some of the easiest in the game. As Sylvanas, you can steamroll with Frost Wyrms, while Arthas gets a string of dungeon missions. One memorable (and easy to forget) element is the Cthulhu-inspired Forgotten One.

The final battle remains chaotic and frustrating. The AI aggressively counters your unit choices—massing anti-air if you go Frost Wyrms—forcing you to play reactively and wait for Illidan’s channeling phase to have a real chance. It’s messy rather than challenging.

In the end, Arthas defeats Illidan and merges with the Lich King.

The Orc campaign is labeled as a bonus, and it shows—it’s not really an RTS at all. Instead, it plays like an ARPG, another clear precursor to World of Warcraft. Despite running on an RTS engine, it features inventory systems, side quests, respawning enemies, and even dungeon-like instances.

You’re introduced to new units like Troll Batriders, but they’re largely irrelevant since your heroes can carry everything. The final mission again leans into a DotA-style format: hero-focused, with automated unit production.

Even the climactic death of Admiral Proudmoore—later dramatized in Warbringers—feels underwhelming here.

Reign of Chaos remains simple but consistently enjoyable, even if Reforged introduces some rough edges.

The Frozen Throne, on the other hand, leans heavily on gimmicks and experimental mechanics. While it introduces interesting ideas—and even foreshadows entire genres—it’s not something I’d feel compelled to revisit.

Reign of Chaos alongside this Expansion are good games.

The Soundtrack is Jamming, the Art-style Aged better than other 3D RTS from the time, the Story and the Voice Acting are Outstanding, and the Design of the Missions are great and well balanced.

But this doesn't mean this game is the Greatest RTS Ever

I Always hated the AI so much in this game and how they CHEAT and knows Every move and every unit and where they're on the Map.

Controlling the Units also is something that bothers me. I like the RPG Style of controlling the Units and how the Hero has their own Upgrade System but that's about it in terms of playability.

The limitation of the Unit selection and how they Attack feels more like an RPG than an RTS and Micromanagement also suffer from this the same way.

I liked the story all the way and enjoyed the campaign like it's an RPG game but this probably about it.

I hated the AI and the Skirmish.

in terms of an RTS I would Enjoy playing Rise of nation, Age of Empires 2, Red Alert 2 or any other game that Offers Pure RTS experience.

When you think of your favourite games of all time it's a pretty tough choice of what makes the cut and what doesn't. And harder still is deciding what is number one, right? Well for me this is completely wrong, when I think of my favourite games ever Warcraft III is the first one to pop into my head and is an easy number one. The game didn't really innovate on the RTS genre, just perfected it, and that is all I would ask for. In this review I will try to summarise why I love this game so much, which is an easy task.

Let's start with the core single-player components. First of all the Warcraft lore has to be some of the best out there, it's a fairly basic fantasy world but all of the characters have interesting histories and stories. The campaign (Reign of Chaos & The Frozen Throne) spans nine chapters with a little over 90 individual and unique levels. You play as every race and are able to experience the world from each perspective. Each faction has a unique play style and the chapters have a different feel, from the questionable and down-right treacherous actions of Arthas to Thrall's mission to bring his people to salvation. Each level is unique and objectives range from escorting and defending to RPG-like explorations and then to outright conquest and capture. This makes each level of the campaign feel like something new and doesn't get boring like many other RTS campaigns. In addition the single-player experience has very good AI for skirmishes up to 12 factions and a wide range of custom maps (more about this later).

Now onto the multi-player components. The game has two types of multi-player: LAN and Battle.net (online). I must say this game is one of the most fun to LAN, you able to do team or solo skirmishes or to work cooperatively or competitively through a wide range of custom maps. The online component of this game is absolutely brilliant. It has ladders, ranks, tournaments, unlockables, guilds & friendlists, competitive solo & team play and the crowning jewel - custom games (more on this next). The competitive scene allows you to play solo against one or more opponent and team based play with friends or random players, and it is still very active today with tournaments still running over 10 years after the game's initial release.

Now onto one of the greatest 'modding' communities in gaming history. The custom maps made by players range from tower defence to complex and time consuming RPGs to fun mini-games to survival maps to arenas to shooters. This game literally has it all. The most famous and arguably the biggest and most influential mod of all time is obviously Defence of the Ancients (DotA). The 'simple' map made from the Warcraft III map editor that spawned a multi-billion dollar genre. Three people that changed esport history and are responsible for spawning the biggest gaming tournaments ever and one of the most popular genres in modern gaming. DotA earned quite the reputation from both Warcraft III players and the general gaming public for being a challenging and punishing game and has sold millions of copies of Warcraft III just to play that one custom map. That's not all Warcraft III custom maps have to offer, there are popular zombie apocalypse servers that save your progress, there is some of the best competitive and cooperative tower defence games and in-depth MMORPG-like maps with persistent characters. There is something here for everyone, actually everyone.

Now none of this would be possible without the brilliant map editor that Blizzard put with the game. To call it a map editor is kind of insulting to this piece of software, it is the most robust and in-depth map editor I have ever experienced. You don't just create levels with this you make heroes, items, abilities, cutscenes and worlds, hell I even made an entire custom playable faction. Even as a younger and dumber self I was able to have a lot of fun using this tool. I created a pretty good RPG called Prison Break, in which you start in a cell have have to dig out. Once you escape you find the prison pretty much abandoned and overrun with monsters. It was fairly good, it had an economy, secrets, cutscenes, bosses, a class-system and custom spells and items. I think the fact that I was able to make something half decent is a testament to the tool, it has an extreme amount of depth yet is easy to use.

The graphics still aren't half bad, and they updated it to support HD monitors which is pretty neat. The games cartoony art style ages pretty well and the building and character designs are just brilliant. The cutscenes, in true Blizzard style, are nothing short of perfection. Everyone who played Warcraft III remembers the Arthas' Betrayal custscene and rightfully so, because it is chilling. Also the music in Warcraft III is fantastic and they did a really phenomenal job with it. All of this makes the game an incredibly good visual and audio experience that hasn't aged that badly.

Everything previously mentioned makes Warcraft III my favourite game by a good stretch. The gameplay is basic enough for non-RTS players and complex and detailed enough for the most hardcore RTS fans. The story is great with brilliantly done cutscenes and music, paired with interesting and timeless graphics. The modding scene gives this infinite replayability and is great to play with your friends and by yourself. If you haven't played this I feel you owe it to yourself to try it as it is a brilliant experience.