Blizzard Reveals Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic

[Steven Bogos]

Blizzard Reveals Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic


The opener for the upcoming Starcraft II expansion pack lets us know that Blizzard has still got it when it comes to CGI cinematics.

Ominous, thumping drums and a sinister voice over from Kerrigan herself plays over scenes of Zerg warriors devouring Terran troops, leveling a city, and tearing down a gigantic statue of the tyrannical Augustus Mengsk. It ends with Kerrigan waking up in what appears to be a Terran complex, confused and scared by her terrifying visions. The trailer is up to the standard you would expect from a Blizzard cinematic, and gives us a short glimpse into what we can expect to see when the game launches on March 12th.

While Wings of Liberty told the story of Jim Raynor and his struggle to unite the Terran, Heart of the Swarm will let you play as 'the bad guys' by following Kerrigan as she tries to gain control of the Zerg forces. The expansion boasts a number of new features, including new units for all three races, new maps, various graphical and balance chances, and a 'level up' feature for Kerrigan that persists as you play through the campaign, adding a bit of an RPG element.

Blizzard cinematics have a long-running history of being extremely high quality and well produced. They have won awards in the past [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4452120/Blizzard_Cinematics_Wins_Award_for_The_Black_Soulstone-2_10_2012] and set a pretty high standard for storytelling in videogames.

Blizzard made a controversial decision to split Starcraft II into three separate games preceding the launch of Wings of Liberty in 2010. Heart of the Swarm is the second installment and is currently undergoing beta testing. Little is known of Legacy of the Void, the final piece of the Starcraft II trilogy, except that it will see release in the years following Heart of the Swarm and will focus on the Protoss.

You can pre-order the standard, digital deluxe and collector's edition of the game through Blizzard's online store [http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/buy-now/]. The digital deluxe and collector's edition come with a wealth of goodies, including exclusive digital content for games in all three of Blizzard's franchises.

Source: Battle.net [http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/8475170/]

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[Shadowsetzer]

Wow.... that cinematic made the Swarm look legitimately terrifying.

 

[shintakie10]

Wow.... that cinematic made the Swarm look legitimately terrifying.

I know right? Even at its biggest you've seen in a cinematic it wasn't all that large...or dangerous. This was just insane, and massive, and friggin beautiful as always, but scary >.>

I straight up squeed when that final rush was just overhwelmin that Terran defense too. It was just pure awesome.

Cant wait to pick up my Collectors Edition.

 

[Pandalisk]

There's something about the Zerg and other alien factions that i dislike greatly, i hate it when they win for some reason hell i can't even play as the "Aliens" in Natural selection, they really bring out the chronic Xenophobe in me.

i'm "Generic Space Marrrrrine" Fo' life and i felt that if i was ever in a conflict like in that trailer i' be in complete despair at what little i could do against that blasted swarm.

 

[T'Generalissimo]

I kind of wish that Blizzard would stop making games and just pour all of their resources into exclusively making cinematics.

 

[Legion]

Hahahahahaha, Wilhelm scream at 1:44. I'd have never recognised it before that thread about it.

I do love cinematics such as these. It's always frustrating that so many developers make them, but we never get decent full length films. Like the intro to Halo 4, it was actually better than most of the game. Bioshock also had some excellent ones, as did Halo Reach with it's trailer.

I am very much looking forward to this. I really liked Starcraft 2 (never played the first), so it'll be nice to have some more RTS to enjoy, I haven't really played any good ones since C+C Generals.

 

[superline51]

I kind of wish that Blizzard would stop making games and just pour all of their resources into exclusively making cinematics.

Seriously, they need to open up a movie branch.

 

[shintakie10]

Hahahahahaha, Wilhelm scream at 1:44. I'd have never recognised it before that thread about it.

I do love cinematics such as these. It's always frustrating that so many developers make them, but we never get decent full length films. Like the intro to Halo 4, it was actually better than most of the game. Bioshock also had some excellent ones, as did Halo Reach with it's trailer.

I am very much looking forward to this. I really liked Starcraft 2 (never played the first), so it'll be nice to have some more RTS to enjoy, I haven't really played any good ones since C+C Generals.

Blizzard cinematics have always been fairly well done. Lately they've been blown away fantastic.

Heck, they even made an animated short that was absolutely gorgeous and so well done it made me wish that someone somewhere would make an entire series out of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhlkvO6NLnI

If I knew how to embed I'd do that <.<

 

[VanQ]

We've been having threads about this for days already. That aside, looking forward to this greatly. Even if the story has gone a bit to fruitbat land I still want to see where it goes. And seriously Blizzard, just make a movie already.

 

[Space Jawa]

Blizzard cinematics have always been fairly well done.

Really? Of the original Starcraft cinematics I've watched, none of them struck me as anything special. Even putting aside the difference in technology, they still struck me as 'meh'.

EDIT: Oh look! 1:10! It's a Transformer! :^b

 

[Jaebird]

Blizzard cinematics have always been fairly well done.

Really? Of the original Starcraft cinematics I've watched, none of them struck me as anything special. Even putting aside the difference in technology, they still struck me as 'meh'.

To be fair, one of the early scenes in those cinematics involves redneck truckers hitting a zergling. Because that was funny in 1998, I suppose?

 

[Ziggy]

Let's see how big the things in StarCraft really are.
Warning big picture.

Spoiler

And here is a link for people who wants to see the big picture.
http://i2.minus.com/idKJOHIciRf0E.jpg

 

[shintakie10]

Blizzard cinematics have always been fairly well done.

Really? Of the original Starcraft cinematics I've watched, none of them struck me as anything special. Even putting aside the difference in technology, they still struck me as 'meh'.

EDIT: Oh look! 1:10! It's a Transformer! :^b

Really? I still get all giddy when I watch the Brood Wars openin cinematic.

 

[Shadowsetzer]

Blizzard cinematics have always been fairly well done.

Really? Of the original Starcraft cinematics I've watched, none of them struck me as anything special. Even putting aside the difference in technology, they still struck me as 'meh'.

To be fair, one of the early scenes in those cinematics involves redneck truckers hitting a zergling. Because that was funny in 1998, I suppose?

I always figured that that cinematic wasn't supposed to be, "look at the stupid rednecks! Haha!" so much as, "Oh, look, the colonists are getting picked off one by one."

 

[Rblade]

are we really discussingwhether or not blizzard makes good cinematics with Warcraft 3, starcraft 2 and to a lesser extend WoW as evidence? It rocks, uncomplicated asskickery at it's finest.

 

[Sean951]

Even when they are restricted to only using in-game assets, like they were with the Wrathgate cinematic, it still kicks ass.

 

[Felgy76]

Heh, the air freshener at 0:29 is a gnome with pigtails.

 

[AldUK]

This is a day 1 purchase. I love SC2 and have been waiting for this. I still regularly play online and I watch every MLG and more besides, it's the premier e-sport for me, the moba games just don't excite or interest me in the slightest.

Oh and that viking, while awesome looking, was an idiot for landing there...

 

[Hero in a half shell]

WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB Etc. etc.

Someone really needs to increase the music budget for these trailers, it's such a shame that they have to use exactly the same sound for every single one.

Oh, otherwise that trailer was pretty darn awesome, and I'm not even into Starcraft!

 

[JSoup]

I kind of wish that Blizzard would stop making games and just pour all of their resources into exclusively making cinematics.

Same, but you know what would happen. They'd get half way done, some new bit of technology would come out, they'd then scrap all the work already completed so they can start again with the new tech. Rinse, repeat. I'd bet we'd get a lot of neat mini-movies out of the cycle, though.

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