StarCraft II Blizzard Worldwide Invitational ‘08 Panel

During the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, Rob Pardo, the Executive Vice President of Game Design, revealed a few tidbits about Blizzard’s upcoming sequel to StarCraft, the highly anticipated StarCraft II. Pardo started by stating that their goal with StarCraft II was to reimagine StarCraft and enhance the differences between the races in the game. He then went into detail about The Zerg, the Protoss and the Terran.

The Zerg

• In SCII, the Zerg will utilize an important resource called “creep,” which can be created by hatcheries, creep tumors, and Overlords.
• Nydus Worm: en-masse drops, no need to risk units, but less flexible than other races
• Zerg Queen: zerg base defender, requires creep for her abilities, can use “transfusion” to heal buildings, has an ability called “deep tunnel” which allows her to transport to any building, and also “swarm infestation” which allows her to turn any building into attacking ones
• Zerg Corruptor: anti-air, infects enemies
• Zerg Baneling: great against swarms of small units, works best with ambush and surprise tactics

Protoss Psionics

• Special abilities: battle control, strategic position, damage
• Nullifier: early game caster, force field, anti-gravity. These have the ability to create force fields that the enemy must go around, while the Nullifier can teleport to the other side
• The Mothership: mobile battleship teleport, command and support unit, can summon

Terran Heavy Metal

• Jackal: position carefully, use offensively or defensively, fast unit
• Thor: assault unit from factory, anti-air flak cannons, self-repair system that allows them to fix themselves when they fall in battle

Rob Pardo also mentioned a few things about the future of StarCraft. They want to make sure battle-net remains useful, they want to introduce special abilities, and he mentioned that 1/3 of the SC story campaign is now playable and they hope to have more information by the end of the year.

During the SCII Q&A we learned that they will be de-emphasizing hereos in SCII, and those that are included in the game will be far more selective than they were in SC. The game will also include a core storyline that will not change, so all players will experience the same beginning and end, but many subplots will be available to make each experience unique. SCII will be available for both the PC and the Mac, and Pardo stated that, “For the foreseeable future all of our games will be available on Mac.” AoE attacks in SCII are currently all in-air attacks but on-ground AoE may be available as wel. The game is currently in a trial and error phase and many options are being tested. For example, they are currently working out the difficulties of finding a role for the Thor unit.