Warcraft II: The Dark Saga

Warcraft II: The Dark Saga
Logo
Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	PlayStation  Electronic Arts Sega Saturn  NA: Electronic Arts  JP: Electronic Arts Victor  BR: Tectoy
Platforms	PlayStation, Sega Saturn
Release	PlayStation NA: January 6, 1997 EU: August 27, 1997 JP: November 27, 1997 Sega Saturn NA: August 31, 1997 JP: November 27, 1997 BR: December 1997
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy

Warcraft II: The Dark Saga is a console version of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, with the expansion Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal included. It was released in North America on January 6, 1997 for the Sony PlayStation and August 31, 1997 for the Sega Saturn. It is essentially the same as Tides of Darkness and the expansion Beyond the Dark Portal, but it has some upgrades and slight differences.

Upgrades

In addition to interface changes necessary to play the game with a control pad instead of a keyboard and mouse, several improvements/changes were made for the console version that would not appear in the later Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition version:

• Added an auto-build feature, which could program buildings to continuously train a specified number of units (cycling from one to the next if multiple unit types are specified), pausing or temporarily skipping a unit if resources were not available when that unit's time came up in the queue (unlike Warcraft III where the resources to train and upgrade were spent as soon as they were added to the queue). The auto-build could also be set to "infinite" to continuously build units as resources provided.
• Added an auto-upgrade feature, which would research all the upgrades available in a building as resources provided.
• Flying units were given specific shadows as seen in promotional screenshots for the computer version, instead of the generic circular ones.
• A quick-play mode was added to randomly select a custom scenario map and start it without the user needing to select any options.
• A color map of the world was added at the start of each mission, including a dotted line and X to indicate direction of travel, similar to the one used in loading screens in Warcraft III.
• A new intro movie.
• A new splash screen and new art for the main menu.
• New cinematics between acts of the Beyond the Dark Portal campaigns.
• Opening cinematic for Tides of Darkness sped up slightly and the text at the beginning (referencing Warcraft: Orcs & Humans) was removed.
• The finale cinematic for the human Beyond the Dark Portal campaign now lingers longer on the Skull of Gul'dan, its eyes glowing as the screen fades to black.
• New music during the credits.
• New Password system to jump directly to a campaign mission (using a password instead of a saved game would reset your score to 0; however, saved game files were quite large, and couldn't even fit in the internal memory of the Saturn, necessitating the purchase of a backup memory cartridge).
• In order to get the game to fit on the console disc though, much of the background art, button variety, unit speech, and sound effects were removed. Background music is completely absent, although some of the new cinematics incorporate themes from the classic soundtrack into their score.

Videos

Intro
Human Cutscene 4 Human Cutscene 5 Human Cutscene 6	Orc Cutscene 4 Orc Cutscene 5 Orc Cutscene 6

Gallery

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  In-game logo

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  Title screen

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  An auto-build option

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  The beginnings of an orc town.

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  Naval battle. The orcs just lost a ship.

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  The orcs destroy a human shipyard.

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  Humans raiding an orc town.

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  Orc vs. orc battle

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  Can select a lot more characters at a time than the PC version.

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  A pop-up is how you issue commands.

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  Auto-upgrade option

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  Azeroth map

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  Draenor map

Media

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  Sega Saturn cover art

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  Sega Saturn back cover art

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  Sega Saturn disc

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  PlayStation cover art

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  PlayStation back cover art

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  PlayStation disc

External links

Internet Archive Play the game in the browser