Gameplay[edit]
The new Terran briefing system allows the player to explore the inside of the
battlecruiser Hyperion.
StarCraft II features the return of the three species from the original game: Protoss, Terran, and Zerg.[1] In the Terran campaign, the original StarCraft briefing room is replaced with an interactive version of the battlecruiser Hyperion, with Jim Raynor, now a bitter and hard-drinking mercenary captain, as the central character. In a departure from previous Blizzard games, the campaign is non-linear, with Raynor taking jobs for money and using that money to buy additional units and upgrades. Although each play through will vary, the end result remains consistent, keeping the storyline linear. Blizzard's Vice President Rob Pardo stressed that each campaign will function very differently.[10] The Terran campaign, Wings of Liberty, places players in a mercenary-style campaign, as Terran rebel group Raynor's Raiders raise funds by taking assignments from outside groups. The second release, Heart of the Swarm, is Zerg-focused and has role-playing elements. Kerrigan is the focus of the campaign, and the story revolves around the possibility of her redemption. The Protoss-themed Legacy of the Void will be the final expansion, with the Protoss Artanis attempting to reunite the Protoss tribes in order to stop Amon, a fallen Xel'Naga.
Wings of Liberty has 29 playable campaign missions, but only 26 of them are playable in a single playthrough since three missions are choice-related alternates. There is one secret mission named "Piercing the Shroud", which can be unlocked on the "Media Blitz" mission, by destroying a Science Facility in a corner of the map. There is also a series of four missions in which the player plays as the Protoss in reliving the memory of Zeratul.[11][12]
The Wings of Liberty campaign contains several missions with unique features, such as lava that floods the battlefield every five minutes, forcing the player to move their units to high ground before they're destroyed. In another mission, enemy units will only attack the player at night, forcing the player into a form of siege warfare. Finally, in one mission, the player must use a single unit to influence the tide of an AI-controlled battle. The single player missions are highly customizable and are featured in the StarCraft II Community Zone. Between missions, players can choose units, buildings, and upgrades that are not available in the multiplayer missions.[13] A major new addition to the map-making community is the StarCraft II Arcade,[14] where high quality maps may be sold for a small fee as "premium maps" over Battle.net. Lead Designer Dustin Browder has mentioned that even maps like player-created Defense of the Ancients in Warcraft III would not meet the quality requirements to be branded as a premium map.[15]
Wings of Liberty features approximately the same number of units as the original StarCraft.[16] Some units from the original game have returned, some featuring new upgrades and abilities. For example, the Protoss Zealot, a melee unit from the original game, now has the researchable ability to dash forward and quickly reach nearby enemies as a refinement of its speed upgrade from the original. Other units have been replaced or removed entirely: for example, the Scout, a Protoss fighter craft present in the original, has been replaced by the Phoenix.[17][18] Other changes to unit design have been inspired by story events in StarCraft and its expansion, StarCraft: Brood War, replacing old units with new or renamed versions which sport different attributes and abilities.[17]Units in StarCraft II have new abilities, compared to the original, that encourage more complex interaction with the game environment. Among these are the inclusion of units that can traverse varying levels of terrain,[19] or have the ability to teleport short distances.[17] Some Protoss units can be warped into pylon-powered areas using the Warp Gate, a slight modification of an existing building called the Gateway.[17][20] StarCraft II's campaign also has exclusive units that are only playable in the campaign and not in the regular multiplayer mode, though they are available for custom maps. These mostly consist of units that have been scrapped from development such as the Terran Diamondback as well as various returning units from the original StarCraft such as the Terran Wraith and Goliath. The campaign also features hirable mercenaries, modified versions of certain units with enhanced attributes such as health or damage that become available for hire once the standard unit is unlocked.[21]
The
StarCraft II Editor is a campaign, map, and mod editor. It is far more sophisticated than
StarCraft's StarEdit and
Warcraft III's World Editor for creating custom maps and campaigns, and it is the first editor by Blizzard to feature built-in
mod creation and usage support. Updated art and data from the original
StarCraft that were not used, along with models and data that were scrapped during the development process (including those made as
April Fools jokes) will be available in the editor.
[22] Unlike previous editors made by Blizzard, it is the first to have Internet connectivity features such as map publishing, retrieval, and online activation of the editor client. Lead producer Chris Sigaty has stated that the editor gives players the ability to create role-playing, Hero-type units and structures resembling those from
WarCraft III.
[23] At
BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard demonstrated a build of the
StarCraft II Editor showcasing its capabilities, such as the ability to customize the
user interface to include features such as the Item system from
Warcraft III. The final build includes a
third-person style perspective for missions.
[24]
The editor was available for the first time during the phase 1 beta testing of
StarCraft II, when it came with a patch. With the start of phase 2, the editor was updated. At present, there is a large map-making community using the editor, creating first-person shooter games, RPGs,
tower defense, and
AoS-type games. The map database is constantly being updated as more map makers create mods for the community. The new editor also changes the way maps are distributed: rather than hosting games using local map files, users now create and join games using maps that have been published to Battle.net. map or mod uploads are limited to a total of 50
MB of storage, divided between ten files at most, with no file being larger than 10 MB. Although the
StarCraft II Editor offers more features than the original
StarCraft Editor in terms of game customization, there are concerns that the publishing limitations of Battle.net will not allow for large-scale custom maps or extensive map availability unless there is an external map publishing tool.
[25][26]
On Friday, November 4, 2016 Alphabet's DeepMind branch announced a collaboration with Blizzard to create "a useful testing platform for the wider AI research community."
[27]
Synopsis[edit]
Background[edit]
A Zerg colony gathering resources and expanding its military.
The campaign storyline of
StarCraft II takes place four years after
StarCraft: Brood War,
[28] and features the return of
Zeratul,
Arcturus Mengsk,
Artanis,
Sarah Kerrigan, and
Jim Raynor. It also features new characters such as Rory Swann and Tychus Findlay. In
StarCraft II, players revisit familiar worlds, like Char, Mar Sara, and Tarsonis, as well as new locations, such as the jungle planet Bel'Shir and New Folsom. The
Xel'Naga, an ancient space-faring race responsible for creating the Protoss and the Zerg, also play a major role in the story.
[10]
At the conclusion of
Brood War, Kerrigan and her Zerg forces became the dominant faction in the Koprulu Sector, having annihilated the
United Earth Directorate's Expeditionary Force, defeated the
Terran Dominion, and invaded the Protoss homeworld of Aiur. However, after the conclusion of
Brood War, Kerrigan retreats to Char, despite having more than enough power to crush all remaining resistance in the Koprulu Sector. In the four years leading up to the events of
StarCraft II, she has not been seen or heard from by any of the other characters.
[29]
Arcturus Mengsk has been left to rebuild the Dominion, and is consolidating his power while fending off harassment from rival Terran groups. Mengsk has become power-hungry, declaring Jim Raynor an outlaw and showing little desire to protect or aid the colonies under his jurisdiction.
Valerian Mengsk, a character introduced in the novel
Firstborn, will play an important role in Dominion politics, due to his position as heir apparent to the throne. Meanwhile, Jim Raynor, whose role in the events of
StarCraft and
Brood War has been marginalized by the media under the Dominion's control, has become a mercenary who spends his free time drinking in Joeyray's Bar.
Chris Metzen, Vice President of Creative Development at Blizzard, has emphasized that by the events of
StarCraft II, Raynor has become jaded and embittered by the way he was used and betrayed by Arcturus Mengsk. Other new characters to the series include
Tychus Findlay, an ex-convict and
marine who becomes a member of Raynor's crew, and
Matt Horner, Raynor's second in command, a character originally featured in the novel
Queen of Blades.
[29]
Following the fall of Aiur and the death of the Dark Templar matriarch
Raszagal, the Protoss have retreated to the Dark Templar homeworld of
Shakuras. There,
Artanis, a former student of
Tassadar, is trying to unify the Khalai Protoss and the Dark Templar, who have nearly separated into warring tribes as a result of centuries of distrust. Zeratul, tormented over the murder of his matriarch, has disappeared to search for clues to the meaning of
Samir Duran's cryptic statements regarding the Protoss/Zerg hybrids in
Brood War's secret mission "Dark Origin".
[29]
Four years after the Brood War, the Dominion is once again the dominant Terran power in the Koprulu sector. News reports reveal that in the four years since the end of the Brood Wars, the standing Dominion military forces have been reduced and defense budget has instead been diverted to hunting down rebel forces that operate against the Dominion. For reasons unknown, Kerrigan gathered the swarm at Char and then vanished from sight. With the Zerg gone, the Protoss have once again taken a passive role in the galaxy. Jim Raynor has formed a revolutionary group named Raynor's Raiders in order to overthrow Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. On Mar Sara, Raynor meets with an old comrade, Tychus Findlay. Together, they liberate the local population from Dominion control and also discover a component of a mysterious Xel'Naga artifact. As the Zerg begin to overrun Mar Sara, Raynor arranges an evacuation to his battlecruiser, the Hyperion, captained by Matt Horner, Raynor's second-in-command.
With Tychus acting as the middleman, the Raiders embark on a series of missions to find the remaining pieces of the Xel'Naga artifact, which they sell to the enigmatic Moebius Foundation in order to fund their revolution. Along the way, they meet with Gabriel Tosh, a rogue Dominion psychic assassin known as a Spectre, and Ariel Hanson, a researcher on the Zerg and leader of a small farming colony. The Raiders perform missions to help Tosh procure the raw materials to train new Spectres as well as to aid Hanson as she attempts to secure her colonists who are caught between the Zerg infesting their planets and the Protoss attempting to eradicate the infestation. Horner also arranges a series of missions to undermine Mengsk, recovering intelligence information about his war crimes and broadcasting them across the Dominion. Finally, Zeratul sneaks aboard the Hyperion to deliver a psychic crystal that allows Raynor to share visions involving an ominous prophecy where Zerg-Protoss hybrids and an enslaved Zerg swarm wipe out Humanity and the Protoss. The vision reveals that only Kerrigan has the power to prevent the eradication of all life in the sector and beyond.
After collecting more artifact pieces, Raynor's forces encounter Dominion battleships at the pre-agreed Moebius Foundation rendezvous point. The Moebius Foundation is revealed to be under the control of Valerian Mengsk, Arcturus' son. Valerian, intending to show himself as a worthy successor to his father, asks Raynor to help him invade Char and use the artifact to restore Kerrigan's humanity, thus weakening the Zerg. To the initial dismay of the crew, Raynor agrees. With Valerian's aid, Raynor recovers the final artifact piece, and the Raiders and Dominion invade Char. The Dominion fleet is devastated by the heavy Zerg defenses, but Raynor secures a foothold on Char and rendezvouses with Dominion forces led by Horace Warfield, a decorated Dominion general. Warfield is later injured and appoints Raynor commander of surviving Dominion forces as well. The combined forces of the Raiders and Dominion military push towards the main Hive Cluster of the planet, protecting the artifact as it charges to full power, and the artifact eventually destroys all Zerg within its blast radius. Raynor's team finds Kerrigan restored to human form; however, Tychus reveals that he made a deal with Arcturus Mengsk, trading Kerrigan's life for his own freedom. Raynor defends Kerrigan from Tychus' attempt to kill her, fatally shooting Tychus in the process. The closing scene shows Raynor carrying Sarah Kerrigan out of the main hive in his arms.
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