Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
Box art for Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
Developer(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Patrick Wyatt[3]
Producer(s)Bill Roper
Patrick Wyatt
Programmer(s)Bob Fitch
Jesse McReynolds
Michael Morhaime
Patrick Wyatt
Composer(s)Gregory Alper
SeriesWarcraft
Platform(s)MS-DOS, Classic Mac OS
Release
Genre(s)Real-time strategy[4]
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer[4]

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS) developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and published by Interplay Productions in Europe. It was released for MS-DOS in North America on November 15, 1994, and for Mac OS in early 1996. The MS-DOS version was re-released by Sold-Out Software in 2002.

Although Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is not the first RTS game to have offered multiplayer gameplay, it persuaded a wider audience that multiplayer capabilities were essential for future RTS games. The game introduced innovations in its mission design and gameplay elements, which were adopted by other RTS developers.

Warcraft games emphasize skillful management of relatively small forces, and they maintain characters and storylines within a cohesive fictional universe. Sales were fairly high, reviewers were mostly impressed, and the game won three awards and was a finalist for three others. The game's sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, became the main rival to the Command & Conquer series by Westwood Studios. This competition fostered an "RTS boom" in the mid– to late 1990s.

  1. ^ "Blizzard's 'Warcraft: Orcs and Humans' Now Available – Press Release". Blizzard Entertainment. November 15, 1994.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference refWOHManHumMacCopyPg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Wyatt, Patrick (July 25, 2012). "The making of Warcraft part 1". Code of Honor. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference GerykHistoryOfRTSWHaO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).