StarCraft II / StarCraft 2

- StarCraft II Fact Sheet – October 2008 -

Title:                            StarCraft II                               

Developer:                    Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.       

Genre:                          Real-Time Strategy                   

Platforms:                    PC, Mac                                  

Game Overview:           StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the terrans, protoss, and zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company's world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Features:

·         Fast-paced, hard-hitting, tightly balanced competitive real-time strategy gameplay that recaptures and improves on the magic of the original game

·         Three completely distinct races: Terrans, protoss, and zerg

·         New units and gameplay mechanics further distinguish each race

·         Groundbreaking single-player campaign

·         Vibrant new 3D-graphics engine with support for dazzling visual effects and massive unit and army sizes

·         Full multiplayer support with new competitive features and matchmaking utilities available through Battle.net

·         Full map-making and scripting tools to give players incredible freedom in customizing and personalizing their gameplay experience

Please keep in mind that all information contained in this fact sheet

may change as development on StarCraft II progresses. This fact

sheet is provided for informational purposes only.

StarCraft II General

Q: What is StarCraft II?

A: StarCraft II is the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game, and the sequel to the hit original, StarCraft. The game will include three completely distinct and balanced races, the protoss, terran, and zerg, which have been overhauled and re-imagined with a number of new units for each, as well as new tricks for some of the classic units that are returning.

Q: When is the game coming out?

A: At this point, it’s too early to provide an estimate of the release date. As with all Blizzard games, we will take as much time as needed to ensure the game is as fun, balanced, and polished as possible.

Q: How will StarCraft II be different from StarCraft?

A: StarCraft II will run on a vibrant new 3D-graphics engine capable of rendering beautiful landscapes as well as massive army sizes. The speed, responsiveness, and epic-scale battles that made the original StarCraft such a memorable game are all realized in 3D with this brand-new engine.

We’re also introducing a number of distinct new units to the protoss, terran, and zerg, and some of the familiar units that return in StarCraft II will have new tricks up their sleeves, which will give the game its own unique flavor. The maps themselves will also offer new interactive elements that enhance the strategic nature of the game and create more tactical points of interest for players to contest. One example of this is the Xel’Naga watchtower structure—when captured, it reveals line of sight over a large area of the map, creating an advantage for the player in control of the tower.

In addition, Battle.net will be overhauled with some new and exciting features to enhance online play and competition, while the single-player campaign will also offer some unique aspects for players to enjoy.

Q: How many cinematic cut-scenes will be included?

A: We know that StarCraft II players will expect to see some Blizzard-quality cinematic content in the game, and we have definite plans to include multiple pre-rendered cinematics, starting with the intro movie. StarCraft II’s advanced 3D engine also allows us to create numerous in-engine cutscenes to help tell the game’s epic story. The Blizzard cinematics team is working closely with the StarCraft II development team to ensure that these in-engine cutscenes are as enjoyable and compelling to watch as the pre-rendered cinematic scenes.

Q: How many races are in StarCraft II?

A: In StarCraft II, players will see the return of the protoss, terran, and zerg races. Our goal is to ensure that all the factions in the game play even more distinctly from one another than in the original StarCraft, while still maintaining the fine balance that helped make StarCraft a classic. We’re also introducing a number of new units to each race, as well as modifying some of the familiar units returning in StarCraft II. With these design refinements and the new features we have planned for the single-player and multiplayer elements of the game, StarCraft II will offer a next-generation StarCraft experience.

Q: It seems like there are sweeping balance changes almost every time I read about StarCraft II. What are the reasons for the changes?

A: As we go through various testing stages, the development team experiments a lot with the game balance. This can include adding, removing, and/or modifying various units, buildings, and special abilities within the game. Frequent changes to units and abilities are a natural part of our iterative development process as we strive to make StarCraft II as balanced and fun as possible.

Q: What can you reveal about StarCraft II’s single-player component?

A: The game’s plot will pick up several years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War. Familiar faces will return—such as Jim Raynor, the reluctant terran hero from the original StarCraft—and new heroes and villains will emerge. The single-player campaign will allow players to interact closely with these characters while determining their own course through the game via mission choices and technology upgrades.
Trilogy

Q: What is the StarCraft II Trilogy?

A: The StarCraft II Trilogy consists of the base StarCraft II game and two subsequent expansion sets. StarCraft II is subtitled Wings of Liberty (working title) and will include a lengthy single-player campaign that focuses on the terrans and puts players in the role of Jim Raynor, one of the series' main heroes. The first expansion set, Heart of the Swarm (working title), will follow later and include a single-player campaign focusing on the zerg and Kerrigan, Queen of Blades. The second expansion set, Legacy of the Void (working title), will continue the story experience with a single-player campaign centered on the protoss.

Q: Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?

A: Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.

Q: How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

A: The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

Q: If I buy StarCraft II but don't buy any of the expansion sets, will I still be able to play online?

A: Yes. This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

Q: How long is each of the campaigns?

A: StarCraft II's terran campaign will consist of approximately 26 to 30 missions, and each expansion set will include a similar number of missions. This means that the complete StarCraft II Trilogy will include as many as 90 single-player missions. This allows us to create a truly epic story experience with a great variety of unique missions and gameplay types.

Q: Why did you decide to release each race's campaign separately?

A: We're aiming to push the boundaries of storytelling and character development in RTS games through the unique single-player campaign design of StarCraft II. Players will be able to choose their mission path and technology upgrades for their army as they advance through the campaign. In order to make these choices meaningful while creating an epic story and well-developed characters for each faction, we needed to focus on a single race for a large number of missions.

The Trilogy also allows us to create more in-game and prerendered cinematics to tell the story in between missions. There will be more interactive sets and elements for players to explore during each campaign, along with other interesting design elements to differentiate the single-player game from multiplayer matches. For example, the technology choices within the terran single-player campaign will include special upgrades and unit types that are unique to the single-player game. These could include the ability to purchase classic units such as the wraith or firebat to add to Jim Raynor's army.

Q: Are these three separate games? How much will all of these games cost?

A: The StarCraft II Trilogy will consist of the base StarCraft II game and two expansion sets. Pricing on these games hasn't been determined at this early stage; however, we've always charged an appropriate price for the content the player receives, and we will continue to release high-quality games that offer great value.

Q: How long will it take to ship each expansion set in the Trilogy?

A: We're still focused on developing the base StarCraft II game, and all the content associated with the terran campaign, including the missions, cinematic cutscenes, and interactive sets. It's too early to provide an estimate on how long it will take to develop each of the expansion sets in the trilogy, but as always, we will take as much time as is needed to create the best possible gaming experience with each expansion set.

Battle.net

Q: Will Battle.net be overhauled? Will there be new features?

A: There will be some exciting new changes and features to Battle.net that will help us ensure that StarCraft II will be the ultimate competitive online real-time strategy game. Some of the areas we’re looking into include features that support online tournaments, eSports, and enhanced communication between players. We’re not quite ready to go into further detail about Battle.net at this time, but we look forward to doing so in the future.

Q: Will we still be able to play the original StarCraft on Battle.net after StarCraft II is released?

A: Yes, you will.

Q: What steps are being taken to prevent cheating in multiplayer games?

A: We don’t want to tip our hand to the people who may try to cheat on Battle.net, so we can’t go into too much detail, but rest assured that security is one of our top priorities as we redesign and overhaul Battle.net, and we will take every precaution to ensure fairness in our online games. We’ve taken an aggressive stance against cheating in all of our games, and our players have overwhelmingly supported us in that, so we don’t have any intention to make any changes in that regard.

Q: Will there be a closed or open beta? How about a trial or demo version?

A: StarCraft II will have a beta test period in the future. However, it’s still too early to determine the exact nature and timing of the beta. We also haven’t decided yet whether there will be any trial or demo versions, but we’ll be happy to share the news once final decisions have been made.
Technical Aspects

Q: What are the system requirements for StarCraft II?

A: We’ll have more details on specific system requirements closer to the release date.

Q: Will StarCraft II include a map editor?

A: Yes, it will. We’ll have more details on the features of the StarCraft II map editor at a later date.

Q: Will there be a console version of StarCraft II?

A: StarCraft II is being developed for Windows and Mac. We have no current plans to bring the game to any console platform.

Insider Interview         
The Making of the StarCraft II Cinematic Teaser

The Insider recently sat down with Nick Carpenter, Blizzard's cinematic creative director, for a behind-the-scenes look at the StarCraft II cinematic teaser recently released at the Worldwide Invitational, as well as to discuss the challenges involved with continuing the single-player storyline from the original game...

Part 1: Concept  

Insider: One of the things that really made StarCraft stand out when it was first released was the epic scale of events unfolding over the course of the original game and the Brood War expansion, told in large part through the game's cut-scenes and beautifully crafted cinematics. Of all the possible scenarios for a cinematic teaser, why did you decide to focus on the genesis of a marine?

Nick Carpenter: The idea of turning the creation of a marine into a cinematic has been on my mind ever since we started working on the cinematics for the original StarCraft. When you click on that button to build a marine, what does that mean? Actually showing the marine being built gives us an exciting opportunity to show that in the StarCraft universe, even something that's normally very mundane can have a truly epic feeling to it.

"Actually showing the marine being built gives us an exciting opportunity to show that in the StarCraft universe, even something that's normally very mundane can have a truly epic feeling to it."

When you see all the intricate pieces of the armor coming together, you really get to appreciate the power and the toughness of the marine unit from a whole new perspective. But this is only the most basic unit; this is your cannon fodder, your red shirts. If the creation of a mere marine is already this cool, just imagine what it must be like when a goliath or a siege tank is assembled. Essentially, we picked this scene because we felt it was a great way to return to the StarCraft universe - open up with something small, but finish with something really big.

Let's talk a little bit about how your team and the game design team for StarCraft II work together to create the cinematics. What role does each team play in coming up with ideas, and how are they then transformed into the actual movies?

There's a great deal of collaboration going on between all the teams that work on StarCraft II. We have a lot of brainstorming sessions where people from my team, the StarCraft design team, and our creative team sit down and throw around story ideas, character ideas, and just general thoughts of what's going to happen next.

For example, as we were coming up with the concept for the teaser cinematic and fleshing out the details for the marine portrayed in it, that marine evolved over time into a character, named Tychus Findlay, that features prominently in StarCraft II. Ultimately, the creative process involved with working Tychus into a certain role in the plot and fleshing him out helped us give him even more character depth in the cinematic.

Also, one of the big advantages of the cinematics team working directly with the game design team is that the cinematics are completely consistent with the game we're making, which isn't always the case when you're hiring an external company. Since we're part of the creative process, there's always a strong sense of consistency and continuity between the actual game and the cinematics.

Part II: Storytelling

It's been almost a decade since StarCraft and Brood War were released. What do you think your team has learned since then, and in what way is that growth reflected in the way the story of StarCraft II is told by its cinematics?

"To stand out, you can't just tell a story - you have to tell it well."

There's actually a lot of things we've learned since then, both in terms of technology and craft. Back then, things that we consider easy now were huge obstacles. If we want to have a talking character today, that's not that big of a deal. Back then, a good-looking facial animation was really difficult to achieve. So, this advance in the state of the art gives us a lot of freedom to tell our story, but good-looking 3D graphics are pretty much the standard that players have come to expect from games by now. To stand out, you can't just tell a story - you have to tell it well.

With every game we do, we try to take the cinematics to the next level. The cinematics of Diablo II were a huge step forward from Warcraft II, and Warcraft III raised the bar even higher. The cinematics for World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade pushed the limits even further, so there are a lot of expectations for StarCraft II. We're improving our cinematics' quality by taking full advantage of the latest video rendering technologies, but at the end of the day the main goal still is to put all that technology toward crafting an epic story with a terrific cast of characters.

Aside from the pre-rendered cinematics, StarCraft and Brood War also relied on the actual game engine to deliver in-game cut-scenes to advance the plot. How does StarCraft II balance cut-scenes and pre-rendered cinematics? Also, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of each storytelling technique?

StarCraft II will have cut-scenes just like the original StarCraft games, but one thing I'm really excited about is that this time, the controls for these scenes will be much more intricate than before. Since our graphics engine for the game itself can display a wide range of effects, such as normal mapping, we can actually create in-game cut-scenes of near-cinematic quality. And since we have more control over camera movement, unit animation, and lighting, our only limitations here are the engine's limitations. A good part of the plot will unfold through in-game cut-scenes, but the most pivotal scenes are still being told through cinematics.

Using pre-rendered cinematics has the advantage of giving us almost unlimited freedom in what we want to show and how we want to execute a shot. In-game cut-scenes still don't quite offer the full range of freedom we have with cinematics. On the other hand, creating art assets for pre-rendered cinematics can be a time-consuming and difficult task, and rendering a cinematic takes time as well. So while we are able to show almost anything we want in a pre-rendered cinematic, the price we pay for that is time. The new cinematics for StarCraft II are really testing the limits of our technology, but at the same time that lets us explore how we can still grow and overcome these limitations.

Part III: Technology

What technologies did you use to create the cinematic teaser?

"I think the polygon count on the marine ended up being well above five million. So when we tried to render the cinematic teaser, we actually broke our renderer."

Traditionally, we've used off-the-shelf software to create our cinematics, but as I said previously, we're reaching the outer limits of what that is capable of. For example, the 3D models used in the cinematic teaser are the most complex and detailed models we've ever done. I think the polygon count on the marine ended up being well above five million. So when we tried to render the cinematic teaser, we actually broke our renderer. It refused to render the scene; it was just too much. In the end, we had to do separate passes to render the cinematic, but this experience showed us that we're approaching a point where our current software might not be able to help us in all rendering tasks.

Now we're looking at other solutions, and one solution is to switch over to RenderMan, a renderer that was developed by Pixar. Doing so means a lot of in-house development, which is fairly unusual for a computer games company, but it's really just the next logical step for us. We have a lot of extremely talented people on the cinematics team, and all that skill and professionalism is being put toward making sure that the cinematics of StarCraft II will meet the players' expectations.

Speaking of in-house software, can you tell us a little about the tools you use to create the in-game cut-scenes?

Our plan is to make all the tools we use to create the in-game cut-scenes available to the players with StarCraft II. It's always been our tradition to ship level-editing tools with our games, and I think that adds a lot to the success and longevity of games like Warcraft III and the original StarCraft. Even with World of Warcraft, there are a lot of really great fan-made machinima movies out there. There is a desire among the players for software like our level editors, and we're really excited to see what they'll do with these tools.

Thank you very much for your time, Nick. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

The only things I'd like to add is that we're really excited to be working on StarCraft II and we hope players will have a great time with it once it's finally released. Also, I'd like to thank my whole team for their hard work and the outstanding job they're doing. They're an amazing bunch of people, and I appreciate everyone's dedication and energy.

And if you need a guide book HERE. =)