Starcraft 2 is coming!

Starcraft 2 is coming!

This morning Blizzard Entertainment proved popular rumors correct: Starcraft 2 has been announced at long last! Rather than doing off with merely announcing the title and moving on with the event, Blizzard saw fit to treat it's Korean fans to a CG trailer and nearly half an hour's worth of in-game footage! As if to tease it's fans - the Starcraft 2 CG-trailer showed a human being clad in armor, only at the very end it became obvious that this was indeed Starcraft 2 - as the human slowly built up into a Space Marine.

Subsequent gameplay footage was filled with Protoss, Terran & Zerg action - featuring units both old and new. A lot of artwork was shown as well - indicating some of the new things to be expected in Starcraft 2. As Korean fans were cheering on - IGN was taking notes - and so here I can present to you some actual in-game facts. So by all means - read on for the full story!



Starcraft 2 will be a new 3D RTS by Blizzard Entertainment. As you might expect: all the old races have returned - with plentiful new units and abilities added. No new races have been confirmed as of yet - not even in the press release or on the official website - so it seems we'll be back to the classic three. Based on gameplay footage and the official press release - Starcraft 2 seems set to become a more large-scale endeavor than it's predecessor, while retaining it's fast-paced gameplay and proper competitive balancing.

Updated As of 22nd of May

Gameplay

The base gameplay of the Starcraft franchise seems to have remained unchanged. Players still build a base - to proceed harvesting Crystals and Vespene gas for resources. This first bit of gameplay footage demonstrates a Protoss player fighting a Terran player, with Zerg coming into play later on. Everything comes across very familiar, but Blizzard has clearly advanced their game up to modern day standards in RTS gaming with some gameplay innovations.

The three factions of Starcraft 2 have grown even further apart - as they've specialized even further in their stronger aspects (such as the Zerg's massing and the Protoss's overpowering technology). Regardless it's still good old RTS gameplay - and Blizzard doesn't seem to have included Warcraft 3's hero mechanics. That's a good thing if you ask me, it just doesn't suit the Starcraft universe very well. The gameplay demonstration shows that Starcraft 2 won't need heroes to field immensely powerful units though, as there are some really huge and insanely powerful units being fielded, particularly by the Protoss. Something many Starcraft fans will be able to appreciate is the lack of a unit selection limit, which should certainly help with those hordes of Zerg!

An interesting aspect of the gameplay which was revealed in the recent narrated gameplay footage appears to be location-based damage. Protoss units shown in the fights displayed damage on different sections of their body armors. As of yet it does not appear that this location-based damage affects unit performance, so it might just be a nice visual gimmick for gaging your unit's survivability.



Units

Blizzard has stated that the Terrans and Zerg will not feature super weapon-like units such as the Protoss Mothership. The focus of this announcement and the subsequent discussion panels has been the Protoss - and Blizzard feels it is not ready to announce the new Terran and Zerg units just yet. As such you can admire some details regarding new Protoss units on the new official website, but nothing regarding the other races.


Terrans
The Terrans still field their good old Space Marines as the bulk of their ground forces. These seem to be handled in similar fashion to the original. Siege Tanks have also returned - which again seem to inherent their predecessor's functionality and power. Terran Battle Cruisers are still in and powerful as ever, but do get totally wiped out in mere seconds by a new Protoss unit. The only newly introduced unit on Terran side thus far is the Reaper - which is capable of crossing terrain by jetpack and carries two lightweight pistols.


Zerg
The Zerg weren't shown as long as the other races - and seemed to take a back seat. Some sort of giant Worms brought swarms of Zerglings to the battlefield some time into the gameplay session - so they seem to have some sort of underground transport units. Regardless the Zerglings themselves have undergone an upgrade, featuring a new deadly transformation that turns them into rolling self-destructing units capable of doing quite a bit of damage. Of course this is the ideal combination for the Zergs natural massing abilities, which allows them to field hundreds of these units at the same time.

Also shown for a short amount of time during the new 21 minute gameplay clip on the official website were the Hydralisks. These seem to have remained relatively unchanged from the original game - and got torn up by a couple of Protoss Phoenix units rather quickly, but not before taking down a Colossus.


Protoss
These guys seemed to be the main attraction during this early gameplay footage. They have retained their good old Zealots with psi blades and personal shield, but now upgraded with a charge ability that allows them to close in on their targets faster. A new unit called the 'Immortal' was shown as well, which deploys an immensely powerful personal shield when it takes large amounts of damage. The Terran Reaper seems built to tear these guys apart, because it doesn't do enough damage to trigger their shields.

A huge walker unit called the 'Colossus' was introduced, which features four giant legs for traversing terrain while wielding two giant energy beams that tear ground units to shreds. In the trailer two of these take out dozens of Zerglings in mere seconds - however they also seem incredibly vulnerable to aerial attacks (sounds a lot like the Scrin Walkers from C&C3). A new flying unit was introduced in the form of the 'Phoenix' - which can overcharge it's guns for a few moments to do powerful burst fire, before it's rendered inert temporarily. Another powerful addition to the Protoss' air armada was the Warp Ray - featuring a steady blue beam that does consistently more damage to it's targets and cuts through even Terran Battlecruisers with ease, although they're extremely vulnerable to infantry.

There was also an interesting new non-combat unit available to the Protoss player, called 'Phase Prisms' these units can be deployed to generate energy fields anywhere on the map. As you might guess these can serve to fuel turrets, but another interesting aspect is that Protoss units can be warped into these energy fields - allowing you to advance on enemy bases extremely quickly, or fall back to defensive positions much faster than any other race.

The last, but most impressive, addition to the Protoss arsenal was their 'Protoss Mothership' - which is a unique unit of which only one can be deployed at any given time. It's special abilities include being able to stop missiles within it's shield - which subsequently fall to the ground when the shield is turned off - and firing off miniature black holes that can take down entire fleets of Terran Battle Cruisers in mere seconds. Additionally it sports a superweapon style 'Planet Cracker Attack' which opens up a barrage of hefty energy beams on the planet's surface - best of all, in this mode the mothership can still move around!

Some sample model shots and background information regarding most of these Protoss units can be admired on the official website. Unfortunately the other races haven't been added yet - and certainly not every Protoss unit has been listed thus far. We'll just have to wait and see for the rest I guess.



Multiplayer and Singleplayer

Blizzard intends to overhaul their Battle.net service for Starcraft 2. We will be seeing some totally new features for this incarnation of Battle.net - but Blizzard has so far been unwilling to share any further information. They also refrained from replying to questions regarding potential subscription fees for Starcraft 2's multiplayer service. To me it seems rather unlikely that we'll be seeing anything of the sort, but it is possible... regardless Blizzard went on to state that multiplayer is the focus for this game - and has been since very early in development (which was started shortly after Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne so in 2003).

Droning on about multiplayer - it seems that Blizzard is actually employing professional players in order to maintain a proper balance between the factions. They intend to bring in further such pro-gamer testers once the game hits beta - although they refrained from commenting on possible public beta tests (although, given Warcraft 3's history - that does seem likely). As of yet it seems Blizzard is truly focusing on multiplayer, since the singleplayer development will be held until 'the latter part of the overall cycle'. No narrative details were released, although it seems likely that Kerrigan, Jim Raynor and Zeratul will be involved in the storyline.

In terms of professional gaming, Blizzard also seems to be making an attempt to get Starcraft 2 to be insanely popular beyond just Korea. They've revealed a possible forthcoming deal to broadcast Starcraft 2 matches on television in North America!



Interesting Innovations

The Protoss have gained some interesting new abilities. They can now deploy phase fields wherever they please on the visible map and construct units on the spot. With these abilities the Protoss seem to have turned into Starcraft's Eldar - capable of secretly assembling a powerful force anywhere on the map.

A further intriguing innovation is what appears to be the inclusion of super weapons. Towards the end of the gameplay footage three nukes are launched and decimate the battlefield (although the explosions seem to be relatively small) - upon which the Zerg player forms his remaining Zerglings in a 'GG' shape! I wonder what role these super weapons will play in Starcraft 2 multiplayer - but as it seems now they don't appear to be too overpowered.



Visuals

Never have Blizzard cinematics looked this good. The CG-trailer they kicked this event off with would not be misplaced in a modern day science-fiction movie - and shows some great promise for the actual cinematics in Starcraft 2. Unfortunately nothing was revealed as to the storyline, or even the amount of cinematics to be included in the game, but I'm certain it'll be along the lines of previous Blizzard strategy games like Starcraft and Warcraft 3.

More interestingly the in-game graphics are entirely what you would expect from a Starcraft running on what appears to be a beefed up Warcraft 3 engine. The units and buildings are very reminiscent of the original game - and overall it looks just like a 3D version of Starcraft with a few cool new special effects. The visual effects are stunning, but it does appear to be geared more towards low-end PCs than recent RTS releases such as Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander, with what appears to be a bit less detail in units and environments than the former and smaller engagements than the latter.

The most awesome aspect of the new engine is that it seems capable of demonstrating massive firefights between hundreds of units with no lag (although system specs remain unknown), even when some of the huge and detailed units such as the Colossus make an entry. Further impressive are the realistic physics, which will have debris from destroyed ships scattering about the landscape in realistic fashion - and even sliding off of ramps.



Final Details and Footage!

As of yet Blizzard has not revealed a release date for Starcraft 2, but lead designer Dustin Browder (Battle for Middle Earth 1 & 2, Red Alert 2, Dark Reign 2, etc.) has stated that the gameplay footage was from early code. That could indicate that Starcraft 2 is still a ways away - and I wouldn't expect it to be released this year. Interestingly they also appear to be planning some multiplayer overhauls for Battle.net and new features in the singleplayer campaign.

More information will be revealed in the coming hours as Blizzard hosts an hour long talk with the gaming press. Fortunately for us fans in the comfort of our own home, Blizzard has also seen fit to launch their Starcraft 2 website with dozens of screenshots and the official CG-trailer, as well as an artwork trailer. Not to mention a bunch of wallpapers, artwork & of course game information! Of course I'll keep you updated on any new developments.


Some Further New Info: The reason why Blizzard has kept Starcraft 2 so close to the original game is because they feel they don't need special gimmicks (SupCom's zoom feature) to be successful. They also felt that they should keep the base gameplay as it was, in order to fulfill both casual and professional gamers' expectations. As with Warcraft 3 - Blizzard will also be releasing their map editing tools for the community to mess around with and apparently this will somehow tie in with some of Battle.net's new functionality.

The game has been in development since 2003, but would have been further along had it not been for World of Warcraft. Currently some 40 people are working on this game, with several other teams around Blizzard helping out along the way. Right now the game is in pre-alpha state and does not feature DirectX10 visual effects, but it might in the future. Blizzard has no plans for releasing this game on consoles - and it will be playable on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Release Date is: 'When it's Ready'. Read into that what you will, but as I see it - we probably won't see this game appear in store shelves until next year - or later.