Mazor and I just got out of the StarCraft II demonstration panel. Rob Pardo focused his discussion on the single-player campaign. He said before showing off the StarCraft II Campaign that it was very rough and he said that it “probably shouldn’t be shown.”
The scene begins with Jim Raynor who is returning, as a central hero and character for the Terran campaign (which is the focus for StarCraft II at BlizzCon this year). You are on the ship, Hyperion, and the Terran campaign will work a lot in establishing some more money to be able to get things done. The layout of the pre-campaign breiefing is very adventure game like (Monkey Island), there are dialog trees in the game, in which you can decide what you want to ask and such. The entire time you are on the ship the graphics are of the game-engine itself, very well designed and very beautiful, the camera style is almost Final Fantasy X-esque in how the camera is position in comparison to Raynor and your allies. You can talk to the other characters on the ship and branch the storyline and talk to your second in command about your last mission and what your rewards will be and when you will be receiving them.
“
The entire time you are on the ship the graphics are of the game-engine itself, very well designed and very beautiful...
The interface is very point and click to interact with the environment and characters. You can also look out the bridge and check out where you are and see the planets that are around. Briefly shown was Swan, Raynor’s Chief Engineer.
The main goal of the newly designed campaign design is to really give the players a lot more story, and the ability to dig deeper into the story and as much or as little as you would like and really explore the subplots, or stick to the main storyline. In between the missions you can use the money that you have earned in the campaign to purchase units & upgrades, so you can choose when and how you buy units. The Marine shield, Viking, and Battlecruiser, were some examples shown of this new feature.
There is then the Star map which allows you to choose exactly where you want to go and you can than choose to explore, take on missions, and really get the background of the planet if you feel the need to read up on. There is a Cantina space also avalible in the Hyperion, then the game cut to a cut-scene with Zeratul and Raynor meeting up… Zeratul warned of a coming doom and this doom is the force that was eluded to in the original StarCraft, the Xel’Naga return to the storyline and are looking like they will play a big role.
We go to the Q&A session and got some really nice answers, if you have a lot of minerals it will help you out on future missions with the ability to fund upgrades and new units. Also the subject of heroes can up and heroes will appear more rarely than in StarCraft and much less than WC3. The campaign design is more about how you get there and not the ending, not different endings necessarily, and allowing the option for some open-endedness.
The question of co-op also came up and the Single Player Campaign will (unfortunately) not have co-op, but there is the possibility of scenario maps that allow for co-op play, to be implemented through the campaign editor and battle.net. This was only a part of the discussion and Mazor will bring you the gameplay features that were shown today at the panel. There is a lot of exciting features coming up and we will keep bring them to you as they come in, stay tuned to GosuGamers for full-coverage.
