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