Ex-Blizzard personnel, disheartened by life under Activision, set up a new company and two new studios

A group of former staffers from Blizzard Entertainment have founded a new company in apparent protest over the treatment of their former home by parent company Activision, which acquired Blizzard in 2008.

The new company is called Dreamhaven and has been founded by former Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime ran Blizzard until 2018, stepping into an advisory role for a year before leaving altogether. Dreamhaven will run two development studios: Moonshot Games and Secret Door. No games have yet been announced, but presumably both studios will be anxious to get projects underway ASAP.

Blizzard Entertainment was founded in 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse. They released their first two games, Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings, in 1993 before before switching their name to Chaos Studios, Inc. They became known as Blizzard in 1994.

Blizzard had their first big hits with WarCraft: Orcs and Humans (1994) and its sequel WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), fantasy real-time strategy games inspired by Warhammer and Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis. They achieved even greater success with a science fiction variant on the franchise, StarCraft, which was released in 1998 to universal acclaim and enormous sales, becoming the biggest-selling real-time strategy game of all time with over 20 million copies sold.

They also began development of a dark fantasy action roleplaying game, Diablo (1997), and achieved success with more sequels: Diablo II (2000) and WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002). In 2004 they shifted gears again and released World of WarCraft, the most successful and popular online roleplaying game of all time with more than 100 million player accounts and over $10 billion in generated revenue.

The game's immense success saw them acquired by Activision in 2008. However, as part of the deal Blizzard continued to operate autonomously and they continued to release sequels: the much-delayed StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released in 2010 and Diablo III in 2012. Both games were criticised, StarCraft II for the immense wait for the second and third parts of the campaign (the final part was not released until 2015) and Diablo III for technical problems and an "auction house" approach which was believed to be nickel-and-diming loyal fans. Diablo III's problems were fixed by the release of the critically acclaimed Reaper of Souls expansion in 2014. StarCraft II's sales topped out at under 20 million, with the game losing online momentum and long-term fans preferring the original game's unit balance and online play. In recognition of this, Blizzard abandoned plans for a StarCraft III in favour of StarCraft Remastered, released in 2017 to critical acclaim. Diablo III and Reaper of Souls went on to achieve tremendous success with over 30 million sales, but "cold feet" by Activision executives saw a second expansion cancelled and developers transferred over to a fast-tracked Diablo IV.

Blizzard experienced further controversies when a second MMORPG they put into development in 2007, Titan, was cancelled in 2014 after an immense amount of money had been spent on it. Blizzard salvaged the game's plot and art assets to create an online action game called Overwatch (2016), which proved an unexpected huge hit with almost 50 million sales to date.

Despite delivering massive sales successes - by some metrics Blizzard's games have sold over 250 million copies, making them one of the most successful development studios in history - rumours began to spread in 2018 that Activision was unhappy with Blizzard's development schedule, which saw games released only when "they were done" and not iterated on annually, like Activision's own Call of Duty franchise which has delivered a new game annually since 2005. Blizzard was forced to cut costs and downsize, angering executives and developers alike who were well aware of the continued massive revenue being generated by Overwatch, Diablo III and even the then-fourteen-year-old World of WarCraft. Morhaime stepped down around this time. Activision was also criticised for its handling of Diablo IV, cancelling an early version of the game which would have represented a more radical shift away from the classic gameplay (and would have perhaps been released as a spin-off rather than a continuation of the main series), losing key staffmembers and cancelling the formal announcement of the game in 2018 in favour of derided mobile spin-off Diablo Immortal, to the bafflement and then fury of fans.

This is familiar territory for Activision, who acquired original Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward in 2003. After initially giving Infinity Ward a lot of freedom and rewarding them for early successes, Activision took closer control of the company, forcing them to release games annually and bringing in other studios to help speed the production of spin-offs. They also refused to consider letting Infinity Ward work on new IPs or experiment more dramatically with the gameplay. As a result, the founders of Infinity Ward quit the company in 2010, triggering an epic series of suits and counter-suits that lasted several years. Many other Infinity Ward developers followed them out the door and they established an new company called Respawn, which collaborated with Electronic Arts on the Titanfall franchise (including the hugely successful multiplayer spin-off Apex Legends) and the recent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, with EA guaranteeing them greater freedom to work on different projects.

It sounds like history has repeated itself, with reports of numerous Blizzard developers and staffmembers quitting the company to join forces with Dreamhaven.

Blizzard continues to work on Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2. Dreamhaven's new projects have yet to be announced, but I suspect that both Microsoft and Sony would be very happy to have their games on their new consoles and the PC platform.

The Rise and Fall of the Real-Time Strategy Genre

Real-time strategy is the name given to a genre of video games in which the player builds and maintains a large military force which he or she then takes into battle. The genre is differentiated from turn-based games by taking place in real-time, requiring fast reflexes and a good spatial awareness to keep track of multiple areas of the battlefield simultaneously.

The genre was codified in the mid-1990s by games such as WarCraft: Orcs and Humans (1994) and Command and Conquer (1995), although the earliest examples of the genre are generally held to be Carrier Command (1988), Herzog Zwei (1989) and Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis (1992). The genre was massively popular in the late 1990s, arguably reaching an apex with Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996), Total Annihilation (1997) and StarCraft (1998). The genre subsequently struggled with a move into 3D and a series of commercial failures followed. The genre became significantly less popular in the following decade, although WarCraft III (2002), Dawn of War (2004), Company of Heroes (2006) and Supreme Commander (2007) all proved successful. Which the exception of StarCraft II (2010) and several expansions, the genre has not achieved any major sales successes in recent years. Popular wisdom has suggested that the genre has been supplanted by the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) subgenre, which evolved out of RTS games.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert II (2001, Electronic Arts/Westwood)

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

StarCraft Remastered

2499, in the remote Koprulu Sector. Two centuries ago, a group of penal ships with tens of thousands of prisoners were lost in hyperspace, emerging in a distant system on the far side of the galactic core. They established an interstellar civilisation, the Terran Confederacy, which now rules the human worlds with an iron fist. A hostile alien race, the Zerg, have arrived in human space. Hot on their heels are the technologically advanced Protoss, whose main goal is to destroy the Zerg no matter the cost in human lives. A three-sided war has begun, a war which will determine the fate of three races and hundreds of worlds.

StarCraft was originally released in May 1998, rapidly becoming the biggest-selling strategy video game of all time. It became an international phenomenon, noted for its fiendishly addictive multiplayer mode, and became an unlikely cultural craze in South Korea. It took Blizzard Entertainment from a small, modestly successful studio to one of the biggest companies in the entire field, giving them the resources needed to make later games such as World of WarCraft and Overwatch.

Almost twenty years on from release (and a startling nine and a half years since I reviewed the original game), Blizzard have released a new revamp of the game. These kind of "remasters" have become extremely popular in recent years, taking old games and sprucing them up so new players who might be put off by their old graphics can see what the fuss is about and old players can enjoy their favourite games with a fresh lick of paint. How companies handle these remasters is critically important: change too much (especially making old games easier or removing key features) and old players will hate it and denounce the game. Change too little and people will, justifiably, ask what is the point?

StarCraft Remastered, which updates both the original game and its expansion, Brood War, definitely falls on the conservative change of things. This is exactly the game originally released in 1998, with the exact same user interface. The graphics have been sharpened up substantially, of course, and the sound has been pleasingly remixed, but the remaster, crucially, also carries forward all the problems, clumsy UI issues and baffling design choices that Blizzard was criticised for twenty years ago and have been annoying players ever since.

Rewinding a little for newcomers, StarCraft is a real-time strategy game. You play one of three races and have to build up a base to produce different types of military units. You then take these forces into battle and attempt to defeat the enemy. There is a lengthy single-player story campaign consisting of 56 missions, separated by mission briefings and occasional animated cut-scenes which tell a story. This story is cheesy but great fun, and is surprisingly rooted in characters on each of the three sides (divided between several sub-factions). Some of StarCraft's characters are the most iconic in all gaming, such as the divisive Sara Kerrigan (a villain to some, a tragic fallen heroine to others), the grizzled marshal Jim Raynor and the noble but constantly-misunderstood Zeratul of the Dark Templar. The story is pure pulp space opera, but is told economically and energetically (unlike the story in StarCraft II, which could often be stodgy, badly-paced and tedious), with a lot of humour.

StarCraft's ace in the hole has always been its terrific sense of asymmetric balance between the three sides. The Zerg are genetically-engineered creatures, animals from hundreds of worlds turned into biological weapons. Strongly influenced (cough) by the Tyranids from Warhammer 40,000 (and the xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise), the Zerg are fast and cheap, but also extremely fragile. The key to using them is both deploying them in enormous numbers, using suicide tactics and also intelligently using support units who can scout out the enemy, entangle or poison upon their troops. The Protoss - strongly influenced (cough cough) by the Eldar from Warhammer 40,000 - are much more advanced and powerful, equipped with energy shields and using plasma weapons and telekinetic powers. The Protoss are tough but slow to move and slower to build; mastering them requires working out how to defend against early Zerg rushes to deliver an unstoppable knockout blow later on. The Terrans are jacks of all trades, falling between the two sides with a more traditional arsenal of aircraft, tanks, marines, nukes and powerful battlecruisers.

It's this balance between the three sides which was Blizzard's masterstroke, something they never quite achieved with the same degree of precision in either StarCraft II (witness the constant balance changes they are still doing seven years after that came out) or WarCraft III. The relatively small unit roster for each side also allows players to master each unit, try out difference combinations of forces and tactics. StarCraft is essentially an ultra-fast, real-time version of chess, with a fascinating array of tactics to try out. It's impossible to say which of the three sides is the best or which is the optimal strategy for winning. There's reasons why this game is still lionised twenty years after release and is widely considered superior to its own sequel, and, impressively, the game still lives up to those reasons.

The remastered version of the game maintains all of these strengths. Units now look much sharper, the up-resolved CGI cut scenes are hugely improved (although not re-rendered from scratch with Blizzard's modern level of graphical fidelity, to the surprise of many) and the sound is punchier and more evocative.

Unfortunately, it also maintains a lot of the game's problems. On release, StarCraft was widely criticised for a sometimes-stodgy control scheme, some really weird limitations - you can only select up to 12 units at one time - and a decidedly primitive control system which forced the player to micro-manage a lot of tasks that should have been automated (Total Annihilation, released a year before StarCraft, spoiled a lot of players with a far superior control scheme and better 3D graphics). StarCraft II fixed a lot of these problems and players were expecting some of these to be retrofitted to StarCraft Remastered. Bafflingly, especially as far as the single-player experience goes, these quality of life improvements have not been carried over. You can't send newly-built resource gatherers straight to a mineral patch, you can't send marines straight to bunkers and so on. This adds a lot of tedious busywork to the game that felt antiquated and tiresome in 1998, let alone in 2017.

There still isn't a difficulty slider for the single-player campaigns, which isn't a problem for the 30-mission base game, which scales very nicely in difficulty, but definitely is for the 26-mission Brood War, one of the most punishing games ever released. The Protoss and Terran campaigns are - more or less - okay but the final few Zerg missions are among the hardest single-player strategy challenges ever put in front of players and there are zero concessions for people who don't have dozens of hours into trying different strategies and approaches before finally beating them.

There's also a nice 4-mission mini-campaign meant to show off the powerful level editor, "Enslavers", but the game doesn't tell you this exists: you have to go through the custom skirmish menus before you stumble across it.

A further issue a bit of technical revisionism. Hit F5 at any time and the game will switch back to the way it looked in 1998. However, it doesn't, because makes the original version of the game look substantially worse than it did originally (confirmed by a quick re-install of my 1998 CD-ROMs). Don't get me wrong, the remaster still looks a lot sharper and nicer than the original, but the difference is not quite as great as Blizzard is trying to sell us.

The issues with StarCraft which could be - reluctantly - dismissed as niggles back in 1998 feel like bigger problems in 2017, simply because they could be fixed so incredibly easy. Even if you accept Blizzard's questionable claim they couldn't change these without offending the harshly old-skool multiplayer scene which doesn't want a single change at all, there's zero reason the sequel's better UI and control scheme couldn't be implemented for the single-player campaign alone.

This leaves StarCraft Remastered feeling underwhelming, especially in the light of the monumentally superior Homeworld Remastered, which also took a nearly-20-year-old strategy game and really did make it look like a contemporary title with a better UI and an absolutely fantastic improvement in graphical and cut scene fidelity. StarCraft Remastered feels lacklustre by comparison.

The original StarCraft (*****) and Brood War (****) are two of the finest strategy games ever released when viewed and placed in their original historical context. However, this re-release (***½) fails to update and revamp the games in a way that makes them more approachable and playable for newcomers, whilst people who still enjoy playing the original games will find this remaster only a minor improvement. Any excuse to go back and replay StarCraft is welcome, but this remaster exposes the truth that maybe this game isn't ageing quite as well as it could have done with a more thorough remaster more prepared to kill a few sacred cows in the service of greater playability.

The game is available now via Blizzard.

The two greatest video games of all time get new editions

The two greatest video games of all time (arguably) are both being re-released in spanking new editions fit for modern gamers.

First up is StarCraft Remastered. Blizzard have confirmed that they are re-releasing the original, classic StarCraft and its expansion Brood War is a new edition complete with new resolutions (essential as the old game had a locked, low-res perspective) and reworked graphics. Surprisingly, the game is still in 2D and does not use the StarCraft II engine. Although not confirmed, it is also assumed that they will be replacing the old, CG cut-scenes with reworked ones.

The original version of StarCraft will remain available but, impressively, will now be free. Even more startlingly, as StarCraft Remastered uses the same codebase as the original, players will be able to switch between modes at the touch of a button and original players will be able to play against those using the new version of the game in multiplayer.

More controversially, the UI will apparently not be improved. This means that you will still only be able to select 12 units at a time and you won't be able to auto-send newly-built units to resources.

Despite these age-old limitations, StarCraft is still widely regarded as one of the best real-time strategy games of all time (challenged only by Company of Heroes, Hostile Waters and Homeworld), mainly due to its sublime unit balance between three completely different sides and fast-placed gameplay. Arguably, StarCraft II added too many variables to the mix and made the game a bit more challenging, whilst the original's smaller roster still allowed for a wide mix of strategies whilst being more constrained. Less arguably, the original game has a far better-written, more interest and more concise story than the sprawling, increasingly silly sequel.

Also getting the remaster treatment is (probably, although it's not been quite 100% confirmed yet) Planescape: Torment. Widely-regarded as the greatest CRPG of all time, the game is set in the Outer Planes and the bizarre city of Sigil, and sees the player taking on the role of the Nameless One, an immortal entity who has to discover the secrets of his past and the nature of his own reality. The game is notable for its commitment to dialogue, characterisation and ideas over combat, blood and looting. The game recently gained a "spiritual successor" in the form of Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition is being handled by Beamdog, who previously handled the expanded and enhanced versions of both Baldur's Gate games and the two Icewind Dale titles.

The creator of many of SFF gaming's most famous characters retires

Chris Metzen, the creator of the StarCraft and Diablo fictional universes for Blizzard Entertainment and the primary creative force on WarCraft, has announced that he is retiring at the age of 42.

Very arguably, Metzen's most well-known creation is the honourable orc chieftain Thrall. Not only did he create the character, he provided his voice in multiple games. Metzen's other famous creations include StarCraft's Kerrigan and Jim Raynor, and several of Overwatch's roster of characters.

Metzen joined Blizzard in 1994 to work on Justice League Taskforce, a console beat 'em up based on DC Comics characters. However, he took time out to lend a hand with their in-development real-time strategy game, WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. The setting, storyline and characters in the original game were very bare-bones, so for the sequel, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), Metzen took a lead role in design (both character and mission) and crafting the background lore for the setting. He then created the world, storyline and characters for both Diablo (1996) and StarCraft (1998) and their respective expansions and sequels.

Metzen worked extensively on WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) and its expansion The Frozen Throne (2003), which set the scene for World of WarCraft (2004). Metzen played a key development role on World of WarCraft and all six (to date) of its expansions, but the ongoing development of the game and frequent retcons of established lore due to game design limitations has frustrated some fans. Metzen returned to creative lead and design on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and its expansions, as well as Diablo III (2012).

After World of WarCraft's release Metzen worked on Blizzard's science fiction MMORPG Titan. Titan was eventually cancelled, but its lore, world and characters were recycled instead into the competitive online shooter Overwatch (2016), which is Blizzard's newest major franchise. Metzen also contributed the story for the 2016 WarCraft film, directed by Duncan Jones.

Metzen's early retirement is understandable given his immense workload for many years, but it also leaves Blizzard in an odd place, with the creative lead of three of its four main franchises departing at once. The future of Blizzard's single-player games has been in doubt for some time, with its focus switching more and more to competitive online multiplayer games, and it may be that Blizzard have no plans for a WarCraft IV, Diablo IV or StarCraft III at this time, which presumably would not have left Metzen with much to do.

Between Jim Raynor, Kerrigan, Arcturus Mengsk, Tassadar of the Protoss, Zeratul of the Dark Templar and Artanis the Lich King, Metzen has created some of SFF gaming's most well-known characters. He also pioneered the idea of in-depth storytelling through a strategy game interface, something that had not previously been rendered entirely successfully.

Metzen has said that he will continue providing voiceover work for Blizzard. Most notably, he will continue to provide the voice of orc hero Thrall for future World of WarCraft expansions and his cross-over appearances in online card game Hearthstone and brawler Heroes of the Storm.

Blizzard hint that they are remaking their classic games for modern audiences

Blizzard Entertainment have posted some job vacancies indicating that they are working on remakes of some of their most popular older titles. It appears that Diablo II, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the original StarCraft are all being updated to work better on modern machines.

There's already a popular mod that puts the StarCraft and Brood War missions into the StarCraft II engine. Blizzard may be looking at doing similar and official.

It's an interesting announcement because the problem isn't really compatibility: all of Blizzard's games can be made to work on modern PCs and Macs without too many problems, a tribute to their robust programming and how well they've kept their games updated over the better part of twenty years. The problem appears to be one more of overcoming technical limitations. The gameplay of the original StarCraft is sublime (and in fact in terms of mission design and concise storytelling, it remains superior to StarCraft II) but the fact you can only build five units at a time, you can't auto-order new resource gathers to gather new resources as they are produced and you are stuck to big, blocky pixels with no way of changing resolution is now rather irritating. It'd also be nice to see the cut scenes from the games revamped and updated.

How comprehensive the remakes are going to be remains unclear. They could be simply spruced up versions of the originals, with better interfaces and the ability to change resolutions, or they could be full-scale remakes in the engines of their sequels.

More news is expected at this year's BlizzCon, which runs over the coming weekend. Blizzard are also expected to release the first full trailer for the WarCraft movie; having a revamped version of WarCraft III for when the film comes out will likely be a nice piece of marketing (WarCraft I and II being such older and more primitive games that they would require much more thorough reworkings to be brought up to modern standards).

UPDATE: Blizzard have indicated that their plan is to simply update the games to work more reliably on Windows 7, 8 and particularly 10, as Microsoft is planning on withdrawing support for older versions of DirectX in the next few years. They'll also be addressing bugs and exploits from the multiplayer versions of those games.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

The dreaded Queen of Blades, the leader of the Zerg, is no more. Sarah Kerrigan has been freed from the Swarm and is now human once again...but consumed by the need to avenge herself on Arcturus Mengsk, Emperor of the Terran Dominion, the man who betrayed her and left her for dead. When Mengsk's troops raid the facility Kerrigan is recuperating in, she finds herself alone and without any allies. Kerrigan needs an army to bring down her enemy and the leaderless Zerg Swarms may be the key to victory, if she can resist becoming part of the Swarm once more.

Heart of the Swarm is the rather tardy second instalment of the StarCraft II series of games, arriving an eyebrow-raising three years after its predecessor, Wings of Liberty. Considering the game uses the exact same engine as its predecessor (some minor upgrades aside) and apparently follows a story arc laid down by the guys at Blizzard almost a decade ago, the reason for the delay initially appears puzzling. The answer, of course, lies in the franchise's multiplayer angle. Blizzard have introduced new units with this expansion and have spent months and months painstakingly testing every iteration of the changes, dumping some new units and bringing in others, to make sure they don't upset the multiplayer balance. Given that StarCraft II's multiplayer scene is worth millions of dollars, this is unsurprising, but it does leave those of us primarily interested in the game's single-player storyline hanging in the wind for quite a long time.

Still, the game is here, and to a certain degree it's StarCraft as normal. You have a base, you collect resources, you build units and you fight the enemy for territory (control of additional resources areas where you can establish secondary bases) and ultimately try to destroy them. The gameplay is held together by a storyline, in this case one about vengeance and evolution. Kerrigan is out to kill Mengsk and end a feud between the two that began fifteen years ago in the original StarCraft. Blizzard cleverly raise this story - a subplot in the overall scheme of things - to prominence in Heart of the Swarm and push the big-picture storyline about the return of the alien Xel'Naga firmly into the background for the next game to worry about. Giving Heart of the Swarm its own direction and a storyline that does come to a definitive conclusion helps it avoid the 'middle title' syndrome that trilogies often suffer from. Heart of the Swarm also feels like it might be treading over the same ground as the original title's Brood War expansion, which also focused on Kerrigan uniting the Swarm under her control. Heart of the Swarm contextualises this in a different way, however, to avoid repeating concepts already visited in the series.

The campaign structure is quite interesting. There are five sub-campaigns, four of them taking place on planets and a fifth in deep space, each consisting of several missions. Between missions Kerrigan is based on board her spacecraft, a Zerg Leviathan (replacing the Terran battlecruiser Hyperion from Wings of Liberty), and can seek advice from her underlings, upgrade units and enhance her own powers and abilities through a levelling system. The unit-upgrade section is the most amusing, as Zerg mutation specialist Abathur (the Zerg equivalent of a slightly befuddled scientist) portentously reveals how he's going to improve the Zerg species, usually provoking a sarcastic response from Kerrigan. Given that the Zerg are the most alien and weirdest of StarCraft's three races, Blizzard draw a nice line here between making sure they stay that way whilst also humanising them enough to give them identifiable personalities. The surprise reappearance of a previous major character thought dead also helps give the game some more identifiable personalities.

The writing is as dreadfully cheesy as it was in Wings of Liberty, although the theme of a need for vengeance so powerful it overcomes one's humanity is a bit more interesting than the muddled and overlong campaign of the previous game. Heart of the Swarm is significantly shorter in terms of proper missions than its predecessor (clocking in at 20 compared to 29, almost a third shorter) but makes up for the shortfall with optional training missions showing how potential Zerg mutations will be used on the battlefield. Though entertaining, these mini-missions do feel like an attempt to pad out the length to make players feel they are getting their money's worth, and none will take longer than five minutes to complete.

On the battlefield, things are similar to Wings of Liberty. As with Liberty, the game tries to avoid too many build base-build army-kill everything missions, instead peppering some more creative objectives into the game. This is helped by the deployment of Kerrigan herself, a powerful unit with numerous powers (which are upgraded throughout the game). Kerrigan can turn the tide of a battle single-handed, but can't win everything by herself, so deploying additional troops is always necessary. Heart of the Swarm avoids the dull slog some of Wings of Liberty's missions descended into, but sometimes goes too far the other way by making things too much of a walkover. Certainly Swarm benefits from occasionally being whacked up to 'hard' mode on occasion.

On the minus side, there is obviously going to be another long wait for the conclusion of the story in Legacy of the Void, and certainly in the UK the pricing of this expansion set is off-putting: £30 - the cost of a full-price, complete game - for an expansion with a third less content than the previous game? Heart of the Swarm does just about justify it through monumental production values, a decent length (about 10-11 hours in total) and a more entertaining campaign than Wings of Liberty, not to mention the multiplayer enhancements. Also on the minus side, though for an expansion much less of an issue, the game has still resolutely failed to take on board any of the major RTS innovations of the last fifteen years. Proper 3D line of sight, cover and destructible scenery and battlefields are still nowhere to be seen, and the camera is still suspended uncomfortably close to your units and the battlefield even on the higher resolutions. Given that Wings of Liberty was looking outdated in 2010, Heart of the Swarm is looking positively geriatric in the impending face of Company of Heroes 2 and Total War: Rome 2. For fans of the franchise, however, this will no matter one whit.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (****½) is ultimately a more satisfying and enjoyable game than Wings of Liberty. The writing is still poor on an individual level, but the story is more focused and has a definitive and satisfying ending, compared to Wings of Liberty's cliffhanger. The result is a game that improves on its forebear and makes for a satisfying addition to the franchise, though one that not likely to win over anyone not already a fan. The game is available now on the PC (UK, USA).

STARCRAFT 2: HEART OF THE SWARM gets a release date

Heart of the Swarm, the first of two expansions for StarCraft II, has had its release date confirmed. The Zerg will attack in force on 12 March 2013.

Staggeringly, this is almost three years after the release date of StarCraft II itself, which seems rather extreme for an expansion. The game will feature at least 20 new missions, with the storyline picking up some two years after the events of Wings of Liberty. The focus of the game will be on the character of Kerrigan and her attempts to regain control of the Zerg following her defeat at the end of StarCraft II itself.

Blizzard had previously claimed that Heart of the Swarm would be 'expansion pack-priced', which in the UK is about £19.99. However, the price currently listed for the title is £32.99, or about £3 more expensive than the typical cost of a full-price game in the UK. Blizzard have so far not explained the rather excessive discrepancy.

Countdown to Liberty: Special Edition Excitement

Rock Paper Shotgun has procured a slightly disturbing video of a StarCraft fan who has gotten his hands on the (insanely overpriced) Special Edition of StarCraft II. The video shows the fan fawning over the game box, art book, DVD-ROM and instruction manual with some ambient heavy breathing before he attempts to install the game only to be thwarted by Blizzard's date-checking software ("It's not yet time!").


Time to Nuclear Launch: 20 days.

Countdown to Liberty

Just to prove, if there was any further doubt, that the South Koreans are totally insane when it comes to all things Blizzard, they've stuck Jim Raynor from the StarCraft games on the back of a Boeing 747.

"In the pipe, five by five."

Oh yeah, and they're giving away a copy of StarCraft II absolutely free to every single South Korean who has an active World of WarCraft account.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the most eagerly-awaited sequel in computer gaming history (in this house anyway), is released on PC and Mac on 27 July.

Time to Nuclear Launch: 25 days.

StarCraft 2 gets release date

Blizzard have confirmed that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, the single most eagerly-awaited sequel in PC gaming history, will be released worldwide on 27 July 2010.

"I have returned."

Better start practising to resist those Zerg rushes and Protoss Carrier Swarms right now then. The standard edition will retail for $59.99 whilst the collector's edition will clock in at $99.99 and include a making-of, a soundtrack CD, a USB flashdisk with the original two games included and more. Prices in Europe and other territories will likely be standard. Two expansions, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, are planned for release following the initial game.

Wertzone Classics: StarCraft

This year marks the tenth anniversary of two of gamings iconic series: the Half-Life series celebrates ten years since the original release in October, whilst the StarCraft series recently passed its tenth anniversary with significant fanfare. Ten years on, with just under 10 million copies sold, StarCraft is one of the biggest-selling computer games of all time and had a tremendous impact on the multiplayer gaming scene. It became the 'gold standard' for all real-time-strategy games to follow, a position it did not arguably lose until Company of Heroes was released in 2006.

The game is set in a remote corner of the Galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector, starting in the year 2499. Several centuries earlier, a host of undesirabls and visionaries left Earth to settle another star system, but a hyperspace mishap saw them travel instead to the far side of the galactic core, out of easy contact with Earth. Many factions rose and fell before the Confederacy asserted control. A somewhat repressive regime, the Confedracy showed its might by crushing any challenges against its rule with savage force (such as the nuking of Korhal when that world rebelled against its control). That said, the Confederacy's manpower is not enough to maintain total control over its territory, and the outer worlds have a degree of autonomy.

One of the outermost systems comes under attack by a strange race of animal-like creatures who nevertheless seem to move with purpose. In the wake of these 'Zerg' come a much more powerful, terrifying alien race with weapons far beyond human technology, the Protoss. Wherever the Zerg are to be found, the Protoss respond with lethal force, wiping out entire planets to ensure that the infestation is curbed. The initial stages of the game see the player resisting Zerg attacks on under-defended settlements and then frantically trying to evacuate the outer worlds ahead of the Protoss advance, at the same time as a mass-uprising against the Confederacy, years in the planning, finally erupts. As the game advances the player switches to controlling the Zerg, a hive-mind species based on organic technology serving the all-powerful Overmind, whose mission is to find Aiur, the homeworld of the Protoss, and destroy it. Once the invasion is launched, the player switches to controlling the Protoss, as they frantically try to stave off the invasion and destroy the Overmind.

StarCraft's genius at the time was in providing three sides (rather than the traditional two) and giving them each an individual feel and level of technology whilst ensuring that they were balanced against one another. So rather than give the Protoss, Terrans and Zerg all their own tank, for example, the Protoss get a long-range artillery unit that has to constantly build its projectiles, whilst the Zerg get a huge, Starship Troopers-esque rhino-like creature which can absorb punishment and smash through enemy ranks, and the human tank has to deploy in order to fire, limiting its maneuverability. All three are vulnerable to air attacks, so anti-air units must accompany them at all times. And so on. This balancing of the sides was and remains pretty unique (even Blizzard's later RTS, WarCraft III, merely replicated units between sides more often than not). Also, the somewhat stylised gameplay and art style allowed the player to empathise with the characters, arguably for the first time in a strategy game, and allowed the storyline to unfold in a gripping manner. StarCraft's storyline was also fairly dark and cynical, with the final victory coming only at the cost of millions of lives and leaving much of the sector in ruins.

A year on from the game's original release, an expansion named Brood War emerged. Picking up the story a few days after the original game, the Protoss empire is in ruins from the invasion and Aiur is overrun by millions of mindless Zerg. The Protoss are forced to evacuate to the refuge of Shakuras and a temptestuous alliance with the Dark Templar, an offshoot of their civilisation banished centuries ago for heresy but who provided the weapon needed to destroy the Overmind. This reunion is not a smooth one, and is complicated by the arrival of a fleet of warships from Earth. The United Earth Directorate has been keeping tabs on events in this sector for decades, and the lure of advanced Protoss technology and Zerg bio-tech has seen them desptach forces to conquer the region. Obviously, neither the Protoss, the new Terran Dominion which has replaced the Confederacy nor the newly-emerging Zerg factions are happy with this idea and an alliance of convenience is formed to fight the invasion. Brood War is even darker and more nihilistic than the original game, and the twists and turns in the storyline, the brutal betrayals and murders and the vast levels of destruction unleashed against countless worlds is both compelling and somewhat depressing. The emergence of a possible fourth side of the game is also extremely well-done and disturbing. Brood War is also insanely hard, with the final mission being known to send grown men away weeping in frustration.

The StarCraft series has had to wait a long time before its story can continue, but a year ago Blizzard confirmed that StarCraft II is in development and they hope to release it before the end of 2008 (given Blizzard's infamous delays, it may be optimistic to expect them to achieve this). Although it has updated visuals, the emphasis is once again on the story, characters and three balanced sides to allow frantic multiplayer games. With the possible exception of Half-Life 2 before it came out, StarCraft II is the most eagerly-awaited computer game sequel of all time.

StarCraft's influence on multiplayer gaming has been colossal. Battle.net, Blizzard's online multiplayer service, grew by 800% after the game's release, and several million people play the game regularly even today, giving it a serious claim to have the greatest longevity of any game ever released. In South Korea, where the series has shifted 4.5 million copies, it is the multiplayer online game of choice, and televised championship games are a massive audience draw. The most successful StarCraft players are celebrities with half a million or more people in their fan clubs.

Given its age, StarCraft (*****) is easily available at budget price with its expansion pack, Brood War, included. It is available for the PC (UK, USA) and, if you can hunt around for it, the Apple Mac and the N64 as well. Graphically, it's certainly showing its age (argh! Unchangeable resolution!), but the gameplay and story remain as compelling as ever.