Warcraft: Total War conversion mod enters public beta following eight years of work

Eight years ago, modder TheHappyCrusader set out to bring the Warcraft universe, specifically the Warcraft 3 era, to turn-based strategy game Medieval 2: Total War via a conversion mod. Lots of hard work and an entire change in personnel later, the team behind the project have released a public beta featuring 22 factions and a bespoke campaign.

Warcraft: Total War focuses on the universe's Third War, depicted in both Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Frozen Throne. The mod has 20 playable factions—including the Scourge, the Horde, and the Burning Legion—plus two factions that are "emergent" on the campaign map.

Everything is designed to look like part of the Warcraft universe, with fresh music, animations, building skins, and unique unit types, including casters, beasts and dragons. It has also tweaked the building tree, UI and menus to fit the theme.

Installation is a little complicated, but the team lays out a step-by-step guide on its ModDB page. If you're having problems, dig around the comments at the bottom of the page, because other people might have asked the same questions.

For the Steam version, you can also find instructions on how to install the mod in the video below. For a huge gallery of images from the mod, click here.

Samuel Horti

Samuel Horti is a long-time freelance writer for PC Gamer based in the UK, who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play. 

Latest in Strategy
Endless Legend 2 Kin faction reveal
It's turtle time: Endless Legend 2's first faction is the fortification-loving Kin of Sheredyn
A massive beachhead assault in indie RTS Beyond All Reason
Over 110 players and 10,000 units clash as this free RTS celebrates its growing multiplayer scene with some of the biggest multiplayer battles ever fought
A castle being beset by horrors.
Cataclismo review
Key art for the new Age of Empires 2 expansion showing an angry Viking and Japanese warlod.
Age of Empires 2 team continues to cook while delivering 'legendarily long' 8,000-word patch notes about 'the biggest updates' the 26-year-old game has ever had
Mechs fight on the outside of a spaceship
MechWarrior 5: Clans is getting DLC with playable Elementals and a fight on the outside of a spaceship
Mongolian throne room
Crusader Kings 3 saddles up for a long-awaited return to the east with its first Asian DLC, Khans of the Steppe
Latest in News
Valve logo with a man with a steam valve for an eye.
Valve's DRM was inspired by an exec's nephew, who 'used a $500 check I'd sent him for school expenses and bought himself a CD-ROM replicator… he sent me a lovely thank you note'
Image of a sweetroll with a candle in it
Bethesda marks Oblivion's 19th with a sweetroll, a candle, and absolutely no happy birthday gift for fans eager for the still-unannounced remaster
One of Repo's player characters, resembling a yellow pedal bin with googly eyes, encounters a skeletal, open mouthed face with glowing yellow eyes.
REPO dev says it wasn’t actually inspired by Lethal Company, and started as a singleplayer cleaning game: ‘It was nice, but far from what REPO is now’
Destiny 2: Season of Plunder promo image.
'We made one big mistake': Destiny 2 developer reveals how a small team dedicated to player retention led to a 20 hour server outage and character rollback
helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 composer recalls stomping around his apartment and channeling 'Super Patriotism' to capture Arrowhead's satirical vision in music: 'The satire works because the music believes it's a pure patriotic love without irony or criticism'
Two people talking in the street
Inzoi's 'Smart Zoi' AI system sounds great on paper but seeing it in a live demo didn't exactly wow me