"Warcraft 3: Reforged" doesn't quite live up to expectations; as I said in my 59% review, this is a great RTS and a lousy remaster, as "Warcraft" fans on Metacritic have said it's "the worst ever." No matter where you are on that scale, it's clear that people are not happy.

Blizzard acknowledged that frustration today in an update posted on the Warcraft 3 forums, addressing some, but not all, player complaints and sharing a bit about the game's future plans. The patch, scheduled for later this week, will fix a bug that caused colors and shading in Classic mode to look different from the original game, for example, as well as portrait animation issues, audio bugs, and UI fixes. Online features including leaderboards and clans, which affect all "Warcraft 3" players, will be addressed in further updates.

"At BlizzCon, we talked a lot about how the team is actively working on getting the back-end up and running to ensure a smooth transition to this new MMR system, as we did with StarCraft: Remastered. Like the Remastered, the big patch for Reforged will include these and other features, and will also address player issues from the original game," Blizzard said.

"We will share our release plans as work progresses over the next few weeks.

Updates will also include the removal of the Reign of Chaos ruleset in mid-2019 (Blizzard expects that players who prefer that mode will be able to find custom games with similar rules), and more significantly, the appearance of cut scenes He also mentions a number of "individual concerns" that Blizzard does not currently plan to address, including.

As we noted in our review, "Blizzard has shown off in-game cutscenes for the 'Culling of Stratholme' mission. With a few exceptions, most of the cutscenes lack the emotion and cinematic flair that we saw just a year ago. On the other hand, the cinematic cutscenes that conclude the campaign are identical to those in the original game.

As this comparison of cutscenes created by IGN shows, what was previewed in 2018 is very different from what was released in 2020:

These 2018 cinematic "cutscenes in the game are very different from the original game. Blizzard states that they were removed because "we did not want to deviate from the original game."

"We dug a little deeper into the thought process behind it at the show, but the main gist is that the campaign tells one of the classic stories in Warcraft's history, and we wanted to showcase that story in a way that would be relevant to the game, We want to keep the true spirit of Warcraft 3 alive and let players relive these unforgettable moments as they were (albeit reimagined with new animation and higher fidelity art)"

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Not surprisingly, given the not-quite-apologetic tone of the message, the reaction in the comments section has not been particularly positive. Also, with the debacle of the "Diablo Immortal" announcement and the suspension of sales of "Blitzchung" still fresh in their minds, Blizzard has lost a bit of the goodwill that once would have helped them get by with a "trust us" update six months after launch.

"We know this update won't solve all your questions, but we are committed to developing and supporting this game. We hope you'll keep an eye on this week's patch and future updates and let us know what you think as we continue to fine-tune the game."