Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a game that in 1995 turned real-time strategy into mass entertainment. The sequel to the first clash between humans and orcs expanded the war for Azeroth across an entire continent, added elves, trolls, dwarves, goblins, and dragons, and split the story into two parallel campaigns that can be played from either side of the conflict. Every mission has a clear objective, a short briefing, and brisk pacing, so the game works equally well as a series of short challenges and as a continuously told campaign that decides the fate of the entire world.

The core is simple and still easy to grasp today: gathering gold and wood, building a base, working through a tech tree of buildings, and producing an army. New compared to the first game were naval and aerial units, so maps suddenly offered islands, harbors, transport ships, and battles for control of the water. Real fog of war was added too, obscuring previously explored territory, turning scouting into a constant necessity. Spellcasters on both sides have their own set of abilities, from invisibility through lightning to raising the dead, and well-used magic can decide a battle that sheer numbers would have lost.

Technically the game benefited from higher resolution and more colorful, detailed graphics than was then customary, and added narrated cutscenes, a dark fantasy atmosphere, and orchestral-leaning music that became one of the brand's hallmarks. The units' quotes are legendary too, responding to repeated clicking with increasingly annoyed remarks. Multiplayer over networks and modems drew enormous acclaim; it was Warcraft II that taught entire generations of players what it means to share a map with someone who builds faster than you. A later Windows release added internet play and kept the game current well past the turn of the millennium. Today it still feels surprisingly brisk, if limited by how many units a single order can cover, and remains the shortest path to understanding where the entire Warcraft universe came from.