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Warcraft

video game series

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ815739
Source-derived summary

Warcraft is a fantasy video game series and media franchise created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series consists of six core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002), World of Warcraft (2004), Hearthstone (2014), and Warcraft Rumble (2023). Initially a real-time strategy (RTS) series, Warcraft expanded into other game genres beginning with World of Warcraft, a highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The franchise has also spawned novels, comics, a tabletop role-playing game, a trading card game, and a 2016 feature film.

The franchise is primarily set on the planet Azeroth, as well as related planets and metaphysical dimensions. Azeroth is inhabited by various races and civilizations, including typical fantasy races such as elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and trolls, along with original races and creatures unique to the franchise. Its lore and story center on warfare between the races and factions of Azeroth, typically between the human-led Alliance and the orc-led Horde, chronicling the exploits of heroes and villains on both sides. While high fantasy at its core, the Warcraft universe incorporates a diverse assortment of influences, including science fiction and dark fantasy. Warcraft has been noted as differentiating itself from other fantasy universes by highlighting "monster races" such as orcs, trolls, and undead as complex protagonists and giving them significant character development and moral complexity.

The Warcraft franchise has been highly successful, grossing over $12 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Warcraft” as video game series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Warcraft, video and game.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1995, 2002, 2004—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Warcraft, video and game providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Warcraft”, the useful work is to connect “video game series” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q815739. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1995, 2002 and 2004.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Warcraft”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Warcraft primary sources, Warcraft archive and Warcraft research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Warcraft”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Warcraft” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.