BlizzCon: SC2 Story Update

After the BlizzCon Panel called "StarCraft II Lore", we give you an update on the storyline and what to expect from the characters and the story of StarCraft II.

Jim Raynor

Jim Raynor is going to be one of the main characters once more. Jim is described as the only honest man in the universe. Chris Metzen said he inspired by the movie "Rush" where there's a Texas Cop, undercover, and that he's the inspiration of creating the character Jim Raynor. Chris Metzen says that Jim ain't the brightest guy, he's just a cool dude. In StarCraft 2, he has almost lost the war against Mengsk.

Mengsk is a media darling, he was the charismatic media darling running the sons of Korhal in StarCraft 1, to make himself bigger than life, he was only out for power. Mengsk has used the media to dismiss Jim Raynor. Jim Raynor is sort of marginalized. They're flowing around the stars, running out of money, running out of belief, he fires people up but now he is drinking a lost. He is still trying to fight the good fight. Chris Metzen assures that Jim won't stay down though.

The general story

There's been an increasing on the events and characters. Added more space between the missions to build a little bit of relationship between the games to keep it alive. The story plays out 4 years after the events of Brood War. Things are better than they were. It left off with the fact that Kerrigan put everyone against the wall, she had slaughtered the UED force and DuGalle is dead etc. UED is not going to be around. Kerrigan just pulled back to Char and no one has heard anything from the Zerg, they haven't attacked anybody, everyone is pretty much waiting for them.

Kerrigan can ultimately attack at any time. Lots of paranoia amongst the humans, afraid of Kerrigan. A few smaller groups still fighting for control and power. Mengsk has brought in some help from Valeri, his son, to take over for Dad. One day, maybe. "If he lives that day". Valeri is a new character. Mengsk's story has been told and they wanted to work more on it, so decided to continue with his son and how he relates to his daddy who's his media guru.

The books, Nova and Ghost

Shadow of Xel'Naga and Speed of Darkness. The campaign writers knew that StarCraft 2 was not going to be out for quite some time so they did not want to start rumours about the second game which is why the books are not more hyped or prepare for a story. A third book coming soon. They loved the character Nova. Ghost had a "killer plot" and set up a really cool kind of "sublicense", somewhat unrelated to the greater war between the Protoss and the Zerg, with its own personality. But it was never published. Blizzard has always been very keen to keep that story alive. Put up a book called Nova, thought it came up really cool and it described what it was like to live there. Nova will be continued and they want to novelize it probably.