The Battle.net edition, released in 1999, included Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, provided Blizzard's online gaming service, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one.

In Warcraft II, as in many real-time strategy (RTS) games, players collect resources to produce buildings and units to defeat an opponent in combat.

The game strongly influenced the company's next successful RTS, the futuristic StarCraft (1998) in gameplay, and in attention to personality and storyline.

[5] The game is played in a medieval setting with fantasy elements, where both sides have melee, ranged, naval and aerial units, and spellcasters.

[2][6][7] Warcraft II allows players to play AI opponents in separate Human and Orc campaigns, and in stand-alone scenarios.

[10] Blizzard quickly released a facility to connect with Kali, which allows programs to access the Web by means of IPX.

[2] Warcraft II requires players to collect resources, and to produce buildings and units to defeat an opponent in combat.

[13] Humans and Orcs have sets of buildings with similar functions, but different names and graphics, for producing ground, naval, and air units.

[8] When advanced units appear, the Orcs have a strong advantage in ground combat, while the Humans have the more powerful fleet and spellcasters.

[28] The company's initial design combined modern and fantasy elements, such as fighter pilots ambushed by a fire-breathing dragon.

[29] The initial release of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness ran over a local area network using IPX but not over the Internet communications protocol TCP/IP.

[2] In 1996 Blizzard published Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, an expansion pack initially contracted out to Cyberlore Studios.

It was followed by W!Zone II: Retribution, an expansion pack published by WizardWorks and authorized by Blizzard Entertainment.

The Dark Saga also allowed players to automate upgrade of buildings and production of units, and to select more troops at once, facilities that were not extended to the DOS and Mac versions.

[8][33] Early betas of The Dark Saga included a working two-player mode which used the consoles' respective link cable peripherals, but Electronic Arts eliminated this feature before the final release.

[34] In 1999 Blizzard published the Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition for Windows and Mac, which combined the original game and the expansion pack, retained the Macintosh facilities and replaced the DOS version with a Windows version that included Blizzard's online service, Battle.net, for multiplayer games.

[70] Sales continued the following month, when the Warcraft II Battle.net Edition SKU finished 20th for October in the country.

[72] Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness earned enthusiastic reviews, elevating Blizzard to the elite along with Westwood Studios, id Software and LucasArts.

[78] GameSpot approved how the innovative fog of war forced players to scout continuously,[76] and IGN's retroview agreed.

[12] GameSpot's retrospective review was enthusiastic about the variety of strategies that players with different styles can use,[84] and The Adrenaline Vault noted that maps set in winter often allow ground units to walk on the ice.

The editors called it an "easy" choice, and wrote that "Warcraft II stand[s] out — way out — as the most impressive, most entertaining, game of 1995".

[87] The same year, Next Generation listed it as number 10 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", explaining that "The strategy is complex, the classy SVGA graphics keep the player in touch with everything that's going on, and WarCraft II features the best use of sampled speech we've ever experienced.

The editors wrote that Warcraft II "will keep you glued to the computer for hours on end", and noted that it "could have won had the competition not been so strong.

[78][79][76] The retrospective reviews by IGN and GameSpot enjoyed smaller details, such as the increasingly humorous responses when a player's units were repeatedly clicked,[83][84] the "critters" that wandered around, and the detonating of Sappers/Bombers.

[95] Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro, however, asserted that the graphics are significantly downgraded,[94][98][99] and the interface, though somewhat simplified with the additions of auto-upgrading, auto-building, and the ability to select more than nine units at once, is still more cumbersome and difficult to learn than the PC version's.

[100] Absolute PlayStation, Sega Saturn Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and GamePro commented that the console versions have no multiplayer capability, but were impressed with the number of campaign and skirmish maps.

[100][94][97][98] Most reviews of the Saturn version criticized the lack of support for the Sega NetLink peripheral, which could have enabled online multiplayer.

[97] GameSpot thought the AI was predictable but very efficient and the multiplayer facilities, while four years old, made it more enjoyable than at least half the new RTS games released in 1999.

The Battle.net service was already reliable after being refined through experience on Diablo and StarCraft, and the fact that it was free would be attractive both to new users and those of earlier editions.