Aborted Warcraft adventure game now playable after 18 years

Eighteen years after its cancellation, point-and-click adventure game “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans” is now playable.

Believe it or not, there was a time before “World of Warcraft” – and a time when point-and-click adventure games were so beloved you couldn’t talk about PC gaming without mentioning the likes of “Day of the Tentacle” and “King’s Quest.”

Well, Blizzard Entertainment once saw fit to combine their most lucrative brand, “Warcraft,” with one of the most popular video game genres of the day. The result was “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans,” a game detailing the story of how Thrall escaped his human slave masters to unify the disparate orcish clans under the banner of the Horde.

Slated for a late 1997 release, Blizzard worked hard on the game for two years until it reached a state that could be described as “near-complete.” It boasted working puzzles, full in-game animations, and cinematic sequences created by the studio Animation Magic. It even already had voice acting that included Clancy Brown as Thrall, and Peter Cullen – yes, THAT Peter Cullen – as Orgrim Doomhammer.

But the game got pushed back to 1998. Then, just days prior to E3 1998, Blizzard broke the hearts of millions of fans with the sad news: “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans” had been cancelled.

What was the cause of the game’s cancellation? Simply put, competition from rival game companies, who had blockbuster successes like “Grim Fandango” and “Monkey Island III” under their belts.

“I think that one of the big problems with ‘Warcraft Adventures’ was that we were actually creating a traditional adventure game, and what people expected from an adventure game, and very honestly what we expected from an adventure game, changed over the course of the project,” said Bill Roper, who was once Blizzard North’s vice president. “And when we got to the point where we cancelled it, it was just because we looked at where we were and said, you know, this would have been great three years ago.”

On May 22, 2008, Blizzard explained the game’s cancellation: “The decision centered around the level of value that we want to give our customers. In essence, it was a case of stepping up and really proving to ourselves and gamers that we will not sell out on the quality of our games.”

While “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans” never saw release, much of its content found its way into the Pocket Books novel “Warcraft: Lord of the Clans,” which was written by “Star Trek” novelist Christie Golden. The story the book tells is considered canon.

Thrall’s early adventures and the founding of the Horde are also portrayed in the massively successful real-time strategy game “Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.”

Treasure from a bygone age

You can now experience “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans” for yourself thanks to Reidor, a Russian member of the Scrolls of Lore “Warcraft” fansite. In a thread in said fansite, he provided a download link for the game. The game is 563.83 MB in size.

Thanks to Russian YouTubers, snippets of game footage have actually been available on YouTube since 2011.

This is the first time, however, that the actual game, in its near-complete glory, can be played by gamers.

As “Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans” is not an official Blizzard release, there’s a good chance the company will push to get it taken down. If you’re keen on going back to a simpler time, however, and experience a piece of history that has, until now, been kept under wraps, feel free to visit Reidor’s thread in Scrolls of Lore. — BM, GMA News