Warcraft 3: Reforged gets The Forsaken Kingdom and always-online update

• The update adds The Forsaken Kingdom, a new campaign that Kotaku says includes more than 30 hours of content.
• Warcraft 3: Reforged is becoming always online, and LAN mode has been removed, even for players who do not buy the new campaign.

What happened

Blizzard announced an update for Warcraft 3: Reforged at BlizzCon 2026, with The Forsaken Kingdom as the main addition. Kotaku reports that the campaign contains more than 30 hours of content and is meant to bridge Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. In the available source, The Forsaken Kingdom is presented as a new campaign within the same game, not as a separate release or standalone product.

Alongside the new campaign, Blizzard is also changing the game’s foundation. Warcraft 3: Reforged is becoming always online, and LAN mode has been removed from the game. According to Kotaku, that change applies to the full game, including players who do not purchase The Forsaken Kingdom. Blizzard is therefore tying the new content to a broader shift in how the game works and is played.

Kotaku says it spoke with Warcraft senior manager Brad Chan and game director Ion Hazzikostas during BlizzCon. The available source confirms that the always-online change was discussed, but not what technical reasoning Blizzard gave for it. The source does note that the discussion took place around the update announcement, so the explanation came directly alongside the BlizzCon 2026 presentation.

The provided information also includes a reference to a YouTube video on the World of Warcraft channel about the developers’ explanation for the always-online campaign. The video metadata only confirms that the topic is covered in a video; there is no transcript or description in the source with additional technical details. As a result, the video can only be mentioned here as extra context, not as the basis for new claims.

Background

Warcraft 3: Reforged is Blizzard’s remastered version of the classic strategy series. With The Forsaken Kingdom, the game is getting an extra campaign, while its play model is also becoming stricter through the always-online requirement. The available source links the campaign thematically to the worlds of Warcraft and World of Warcraft, which fits Blizzard’s habit of connecting storylines across different parts of the universe.

The source describes The Forsaken Kingdom as a 30+ hour campaign, but it does not provide independent confirmation of how that playtime was measured. There is also no confirmed information in the available material about platform-specific exceptions, regional differences, or any plan to restore offline or LAN functionality. So the only confirmed details are that Blizzard has made the game always online and removed the LAN option.

The change matters because Kotaku explicitly says the always-online requirement applies not only to buyers of the new campaign, but to the full game. That means the update does more than add content: it also changes the core conditions of Warcraft 3: Reforged. The source does not provide technical specifics about server dependence, account verification, or any offline fallback.

The available facts also do not mention a separate release date for The Forsaken Kingdom itself, only that the announcement took place at BlizzCon 2026 and that Kotaku published its report on 2026-09-15. There is also no confirmed information about a later patch, a test phase, or a staged rollout. The only hard details in the source are the campaign name, the stated playtime of more than 30 hours, the always-online requirement, and the removal of LAN mode.