Blizzard to release StarCraft II as trilogy
Late last week, games maker Blizzard announced that it would release three full-length games to make up the StarCraft II package.
Each release will focus on a single player campaign and they will be divided up into three races. The first game to be released will be StarCraft II Terrans: Wings of Liberty, followed by StarCraft II Zerg: Heart of the Swarm and finally StarCraft II Protoss: Legacy of the Void.
Blizzard said that releasing the game as a trilogy was the only viable way to give each campaign the scope and depth it deserved. Critics and many members of the online Blizzard community have suggested that Blizzard was merely looking to triple its profits.
In Blizzard’s defence, each game will consist of a single player campaign that will be longer than all three of the original StarCraft campaigns combined. Blizzard estimates that each campaign will be made up of around thirty missions. The original StarCraft had twelve Terran missions and ten for each of the other two races, totaling just over thirty missions. Blizzard has promised that releasing the game as a trilogy would allow for far more depth and customisation in the single player campaigns.
Blizzard said that the main reason for choosing to release StarCraft II as a trilogy was that the vision for the game was simply too large for a single release. The company said that it had two options: One was to cut down on the scope and vision of the game, releasing less epic more linear campaigns with reduced character development. The second option was to cut out a lot of what they wanted to do, but maintain a fair degree of their epic vision; this would essentially be a compromise. It would also mean a further delay of the release.
In the end Blizzard chose to release StarCraft II as a trilogy, allowing them to include all of the planned content and still get the first installment out within a reasonable timeframe.
Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard, has made assurances that all three StarCraft II releases will include fully functional multiplayer StarCraft II, including access to all three of the races. He also said that the company was aiming to release each game approximately a year apart, but admitted that they had not started working on the later two campaigns so could not promise anything.
Pardo elaborated on some of the features that would be present in StarCraft II saying that once the introductory missions were completed, the player would be taken to an intergalactic map of the universe. From there, the player could choose which missions to play.
Blizzard also responded to critics that accused Activision of milking Blizzard’s long standing fan base by saying that it was in no way trying to fleece customers. Blizzard insisted that in terms of content and value, each release would be equivalent to any full-scale game release.
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