Blizzard unveiled Starcraft 2 today at the Worldwide Invitational in South Korea.
Here’s what Blizzard (and Wikipedia) has to say about the sequel:
According to its creators, StarCraft II
is designed to be the “ultimate competitive real-time strategy game”,[1] building on the successes enjoyed by its predecessor, StarCraft.[8][9][10] It features the return of the three races from the original game — Protoss, Terran, and Zerg; Blizzard states these are the only playable races in the game.[3][1][11][12] StarCraft II
is also designed to focus more heavily on the multiplayer aspect, when compared to the original StarCraft. The changes include overall improvement in Battle.net, a new competitive “ladder” system for ranked games and new matchmaking mechanics – designed to “match-up” players of equal skill levels.[1] In addition, the replay function, which allows players to record and review past games, is being improved. Blizzard has also stated they are monitoring fan feedback to the game’s revealed features and are taking such feedback into consideration, which has already led to some features being altered.[13]
StarCraft II
continues its predecessor’s use of cinematic cut scenes (pre-rendered, high-quality CGI movies) between levels to advance the plot, while also improving the quality of in-game cut scenes (rendered on-the-fly using the same game engine as the graphics in the game proper) within the levels themselves. Blizzard states that with the new graphics engine that StarCraft II
uses to render the gameplay, they “can actually create in-game cut-scenes of near-cinematic quality”.[14]
Don’t foreget to check out Starcraft Junkie (http://www.starcraftjunkie.com) for all of the latest news and information for Starcraft 2.
