Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Hero units plus a world editor — and the custom-map scene that produced two genres.

Released 2002 Developer Blizzard Entertainment Platform PC Genre Real-time strategy Era Broadband & the console shooter Website classic.battle.net ↗

Mechanics this game introduced

These are recorded as first appearing here. Each links to a full history of where the idea went next.

Strategy & Tactics · 2003

Tower Defense Lane Denial

Tower defense has players place static defences along a fixed route while waves of enemies walk it, turning strategy i…

Origin: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Mechanics it built on

Ideas Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos inherited rather than invented — each traceable back through the ontology to a root.

Experience Points and Levels ~~1980~~Real-Time Base and Unit Production ~~1992~~Fog of War ~~1992~~Open Data Formats and Mod SDK ~~1993~~Ability Cooldown Economy ~~1999~~

Directly influenced

Defense of the Ancients ~~2003~~

The Warcraft series in this dataset

1995

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness ~~1995~~

2002

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos ~~this page~~

2004

World of Warcraft ~~2004~~

2014

Hearthstone ~~2014~~

Look this game up elsewhere

Official site ↗Wikipedia ↗MobyGames ↗IGDB ↗Giant Bomb ↗

Follow Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Free updates when a mechanic is added or an origin is corrected. One email a month at most; no spam, ever.

Get updates

~~← Previous in series~~Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness ~~Next in series →~~World of Warcraft