Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

The World Editor may have been Warcraft III's most important unit.

Blizzard's 2002 strategy game put greater emphasis on powerful heroes who gained experience and new abilities as they fought alongside conventional armies. That combination gave Warcraft III a character of its own within the RTS genre.

But the World Editor opened the game far beyond what Blizzard had designed. Players could create experiences that barely resembled conventional Warcraft III, and custom games became a huge part of its life on Battle.net. More than two decades later, people are still making and playing them.

The scene's greatest historical consequence was Defense of the Ancients. Building on ideas from StarCraft's Aeon of Strife, DotA used Warcraft III's heroes and flexible tools to develop a form of competitive play that eventually became the foundation of the modern MOBA genre.

Warcraft III's players ultimately expanded its influence far beyond the original RTS.