Exciting news for Warcraft fans – a group of dedicated fans has released the first part of a full-on remake of Warcraft II’s campaign, playable for free in Warcraft III: Reforged.

Called Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War, this update aims to bring Warcraft II closer to the beloved Warcraft III in terms of gameplay and presentation. The team behind the project, LoreCraft Designs, will be releasing the campaign in multiple parts. Part one, the Horde-focused “Tides of Darkness” campaign, is available now for free download and play by those who already own Blizzard’s 2020 remake of Warcraft III.

In a post from the project’s Discord server, one of the mod’s creators, Shadi, remarked that Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War has been in the works for over three and a half “grueling” years. The team had to make a decision on whether to continue tweaking and polishing the remake or releasing a playable version sooner. LoreCraft Designs decided on the latter option, with the goal being to regularly patch the project and address any critical bugs or crashes that may arise. There have been no announcements on when a remake of the human-focused second part of the Warcraft II campaign will release.

Many fans see this fan remake of Warcraft II as the update they had hoped for with Warcraft III: Reforged. The latter was heavily criticized at launch for lacking features found in the original version of the game and failing to deliver on promised new cutscenes and expanded story elements that were shown during development but didn’t make it into the final product.

In response to the poorly received launch, Blizzard temporarily relaxed its normal refund policy and offered no-questions asked refunds for Warcraft III: Reforged to accommodate fans who found the game didn’t “provide the experience they wanted.” Reports later claimed Warcraft III: Reforged’s development was a victim of budget cuts and mismanagement.

Warcraft: Chronicles of the Second War is just the latest example of Blizzard fans taking matters into their own hands when it comes to updating or remaking games that Blizzard itself has left untouched. Fans have also recently made an ambitious fan remake of Blizzard’s MOBA Heroes of the Storm, complete with new content, playable for free within StarCraft II. Additionally, there have been long-standing dreams of what a more modern game set in the Warcraft universe might look like if it used something like Epic’s Unreal Engine 5.