Since the launch of World Of Warcraft Classic late last month, players have been gathering in their thousands to return to Azeroth and rediscover the magic of the MMORPG that once dominated their lives.
While it’s great to see that World of Warcraft we all love and remember is in such rude health (so much so that players were forced to queue to actually get into the game), I have to wonder if Blizzard could have gone the extra few miles and made the Classic server a real remaster.
I’m aware that’s just me being incredibly greedy, and the team has done great work that’s been massively appreciated by fans the world over, but what if we got a proper World of Warcraft remake using Unreal Engine 4 rather than the upscaled resolutions that Classic offers?
It’s something that YouTuber and designer Daniel L has previously dared to dream with his series of videos that remodel iconic areas from the MMORPG. He’s released an impressive collection of uploads over the years, but his most recent effort – a remaster of the entirety of Stormwind City – might just be his best work yet.
Check it out below. Drink it in. Appreciate it, because we’re probably never getting an official Unreal Engine 4 remaster of World of Warcraft. We can watch this and dream, though.
Sadly, this breathtaking recreation of Stormwind isn’t playable, but you have to hand it to Daniel L for the amount of effort and passion that clearly went into this substantial project.
The dedicated designer previously put together a series of near-photorealistic recreations of a number of other key locations from World of Warcraft, including Duskwood, Durotar, Westfall. You can check out some of their best work via the compilation video below.
While it’s clear that World of Warcraft has never looked more realistic than it does in these videos, the fantasy realm does lose a little bit of its trademark whimsical charm in the jump to Unreal Engine. That’s not a particularly bad thing though, and Daniel L has done a pretty solid job of sticking to the game’s unique aesthetic where possible.
Unreal Engine 4 has been used by fans for years to create all manner of gorgeous fan projects that will obviously never see the light of day. Two of my personal favourites include an eye-wateringly lovely take on Dragon Ball Z, and a recreation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that takes my breath away every time I see an update on it.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.