On July 02, 2025, Blizzard Entertainment releasedWarcraft: Orcs and Humans. While it was not the first multiplayer real-time strategy game, the innovations it introduced would go on to define the genre. The success ofWarcraft: Orcs and Humansset the stage for an influx of new RTS games, including its own sequels,Warcraft 2and3.
However, the influence ofWarcraft: Orcs and Humansgoes further than a single genre. The game stabilized the future of Blizzard, and became one of the cornerstone franchises upon which the company built its success. In this way,Warcraft 1irrevocably changed the course of not only the fantasy genre, but gaming in general.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans Started a Blizzard
The History of How Warcraft 1 Came to Be
Blizzard Entertainment was originally founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse Inc. It briefly rebranded to Chaos Studios, Inc. in 1993 before finally picking up the well-known Blizzard name in 1994. Though it produced a handful ofclassic games likeThe Lost Vikings,The Death and Return of Superman, andBlackthorneunder these various names, none of them reached groundbreaking levels of success – that is, untilWarcraft: Orcs and Humans.
Within the first year,Warcraft: Orcs and Humanssold 100,000 copies, going on to triple that number in subsequent years – an impressive number for the time. According to Entertainment Weekly, it was the 19th most popular CD on the market in 1995, only behind a handful oficonic games likeCommand & Conquer,Dark Forces, andDoom 2, as well as vital software like the Windows 95 operating system disc and Microsoft Office. This critical success put Blizzard Entertainment on the map, and secured its finances to allow it to make more games.
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The Blizzard Entertainment-Westwood Studies Rivalry
Warcraft: Orcs and Humanswas far from the first RTS, but it rapidly became a massive success, largely due to innovations in multiplayer capabilities, mission design, and gameplay elements. This turned Blizzard into a major competitor for Westwood Studios, developer of the popular 1992 RTSDune 2. Not to be outdone, Westwood responded withCommand & Conquerin 1995, with Blizzard’sWarcraft 2releasing a couple months later. The rivalry between the two companies inspired theboom in RTS games during the 1990sand 2000s, including future Blizzard titles likeStarCraftandWarcraft 3, plus numerous moreCommand & Conquergames.
According to Jason Schreier’sPlay Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment, Westwood Studies believed Blizzard Entertainment stole code fromDune 2to developWarcraft: Orcs and Humans, though the claim was denied and eventually dropped. Westwood co-founder Louis Castle later said “If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they were flattering us a lot.”
ButWarcraft: Orcs and Humanswas originally going to be something much different than it became. Indeed, the name “Warcraft” initially had no deeper meaning – it was just borrowed from aDungeons and Dragonscharacter belonging toformer Blizzard senior art director Samwise Didiersimply because the developers thought it sounded cool. The game was envisioned as a fantasy setting inspired byThe Lord of the RingsandWarhammer, and as the first of a series of loosely-connected RTS games set in various fictional and real-life settings like ancient Rome or Vietnam. Instead, it became the earliest and largest multimedia franchise for Blizzard Entertainment.
The Wildfire That Is the Warcraft Franchise
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans Changed the Fantasy Genre
In the years that followed,Warcrafttransformed from a successful RTS into an IP that would stretch across multiple genres and forms of media. Beyond the RTS sequels, Blizzard releasedWorld of Warcraft– one of the most successful MMORPGs in history – as well as the hugely-popular digital card gameHearthstone, aformerly-mobile-only title in the form ofWarcraft Rumble, and countless books and comics set in the setting. It even retold the events ofWarcraft 1with a twist in the 2016Warcraftfilm. What began as a multiplayerWarhammer-esque RTS with a “cool” name has become one of the largest and most influential fantasy settings in history.
Remastered versions ofWarcraft 1and2are now available on Battle.net separately, and together with the original games andWarcraft 3: Reforgedvia theWarcraftRemastered Battle Chest.
The Orcish Horde inWarcraft 1was undeniably evil, but the actions taken during the first game set the framework for more modern takes on the lore of Azeroth. Though a great deal ofWarcraft 1’s plot has been retconned in later years, it detailed how the Orcs first arrived on Azeroth, and covered the first conflicts between them and the Humans of the Alliance. InWarcraft 3, Blizzard threw away the Tolkein-esque “evil orc,” becoming one of the most well-known settings to do so, and setting a trend that is stillbeing explored with Orcs in modern games likeBaldur’s Gate 3. Three decades later, the groundwork ofWarcraft: Orcs and Humanscan still be seen inWorld of Warcrafttoday.
Fun Facts About Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
Warcraft: Orcs and Humansmay not have redefined the fantasy genre or RTS games on its own, but it walked so that its descendants could run. ThroughWarcraft 2and3,and by extensionHearthstoneandWorld of Warcraft, it was responsible for innovations in the RTS, CCG, and MMO genres for decades to come – and by establishing a foothold for Blizzard to become a major game studio, it technically had a hand in shaping the isometric ARPG and FPS scenes by helpingDiabloandOverwatchto be developed in later on. Needless to say, gaming as it is now would have looked a lot different hadWarcraft: Orcs and Humansnever been released.
WHERE TO PLAY
Enter the world of WarCraft, a mystical land where evil Orcs and noble Humans battle for survival and domination. With an ingenious arsenal of weaponry and powerful magic, these two forces collide in a contest of cunning, intellect and brute strength.Destroy the Orcish hordes or crush the weakling Humans…the choice is yours.
