Blizzard Explains Tough Decisions Behind StarCraft II Trilogy

[Tom Goldman]

Blizzard Explains Tough Decisions Behind StarCraft II Trilogy

The StarCraft II trilogy was developed to add more fun to the game, not for profit, according to Blizzard.

When Blizzard first announced that StarCraft II [http://www.amazon.com/Starcraft-II-Wings-Liberty-Pc/dp/B000ZKA0J6] was going to be divided into three games, each with a campaign focusing on a single race, fans took it to mean that they were going to have to pay three times for a single game. In a recent interview with Game Informer, StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder details Blizzard's thought process behind the division, and assures gamers that they're better off with a trilogy than a single title.

Browder revealed that Blizzard decided to divide StarCraft II into three parts in the "middle of development," and that it "was not the opening move." As Blizzard kept wanting to add more and more depth to StarCraft II, creating one game simply wasn't an option.

"At one point we had 17 or 18 missions per campaign, so we were looking at making 50-some missions," Browder said. "Even then, they didn't have a lot of choice and options in them. The critical path was still fairly linear, and we wanted more missions than that."

For Blizzard to put out the product of the quality it wanted, more content was necessary, but that would have been setting Blizzard up for "a 10 or 12-year development cycle." After what Browder calls "hard talks" and "the screaming and throwing of things," the decision to create a trilogy was made.

Browder admits: "It still took us forever," and though he believes fans are getting plenty of value out of the StarCraft II games, he does feel for the fans that only have interest in the Zerg and Protoss campaigns that'll have to wait. Still, he reveals: "We were looking at maybe a 12-mission campaign for each race ... [that] wasn't going to be as fun." And we may be getting even more content in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm - the upcoming Zerg-focused title - than there was in Wings of Liberty, with Browder saying it'll possibly have "a larger campaign, with more details on Kerrigan, [and] a more in-depth look at what it means to be a Zerg."

Sounds good to me. So can we please all stop saying that we're paying three times for one game now?

Source: Game Informer [http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/09/18/starcraft-ii-wasn-t-originally-planned-as-a-trilogy.aspx]

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[DarkDain]

Yes, yes we can all stop saying that. RIGHT?
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

 

[Maze1125]

They explained all that at the time they originally announced it. It didn't stop people saying it then, so I doubt it will now.

 

[Matey]

Still sounds like buying three games to me. Do I have to go pay $40-60 for each one? then I'm buying three games. If they make them as Expansion packs and charge $20-30 for each... well thats not so bad.

 

[tomtom94]

Translation:
We want lots of money and we know you'll pay it.

 

[Credge]

In other words, Starcraft 2 was split in to multiple parts when Activision came in to the picture.

 

[L4hlborg]

These people may stop at the point at they have played Heart of the Swam (since pretty much all sc players will buy it). If it actually is as big as Blizzard says, then they should be happy and they might just shut up on the topic. And continue ranting on the Protoss game. It might be smaller.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

Sorry, the truth must be told.

"OH WE JUST CAN'T MAKE A SINGLE COMPLETELY AWESOME GAME!! WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MAKE THREE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS AWESOME GAMES!!"

Complete, utter, bullshit. Everything wrong with the industry.

 

[chemicalfire]

I personally felt like I was playing a fully-fledged game with Wings of Liberty. I've gotten plenty of play timeout of the campaign and challenges, and I'm still working on them. I'm sure Heart of the Swarm and Loins of the Protoss (I don't know the actual title for that one) will have larger campaigns and mre challenge missions to make up for the fact that the multiplayer already came with Wings.

 

[JediMB]

Wings of Liberty had as many missions as the original StarCraft, so I don't see the problem.

 

[Jaeriko]

I think it would be unfair for us to expect 3 fully fleshed out games(which is what they are hoping to deliver, apparently) for the price of one.

Quite frankly, I think a lot of people are overreacting about this.


You don't have to buy the other games, either.

 

[Altorin]

It's funny, all the talk about Zerg and Protoss players getting the short end of the stick just isn't true.. TERRAN players will be getting the short end of the stick in the end.. All the innovations that come out of the Terran Pack and influence innovations in the later Packs won't be retroactively added to the Terran Pack.. by the time we get "Life for Aiur" or whatever the Protoss one is called, the Terran Pack may actually need a facelift that it will never get..

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

I'm not saying that it's not worth the money, but you can't seriously argue it's a complete story. It's about as far from it as it can be, but I can respect the game for at least not pretending otherwise. I am so fucking sick of cliffhanger endings that get filled later with DLC or sequels. At least with Starcraft 2 I knew it was coming.

I'll be happy as long the expansion packs are reasonably priced. Only then.

 

[ZeoAssassin]

considering WoL was indeed a full and satisfying game it really doesn't bother me much. really its like bitching that Ubisoft should make all the AC games in 1 instead of making all the sequels.

and its a good game so really so long as they don't cop out people should support it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's always up to the consumer whether or not they want to purchase a game; it's always their choice.
If you don't like what a company is doing with their product, and you know they aren't going to budge on the issue, for fuck's sake don't keep bitching about it well after the fact, just DO NOT BUY THEIR PRODUCT.

What is so fucking hard about this? Honestly. People piss and moan about what's happening to "their game" for months on end, how it's going to ruin the experience etc, AND THEN THEY GO OUT AND BUY IT ANYWAY.
That isn't mere Hypocrisy, it's fucking lunacy.

 

[Eric the Orange]

no point in this. There is nothing they can say to make people stop what they think.

personally 30 missions is a full game to me. The first game only had 30. So to expect this one to have 90 is unfair of people. then again I play primarily for single player, I guess people who only play for multi-player may think otherwise.

 

[Nurb]

Translation: "We wanted to provide as little content as possible for the most money. Our mountain of cash just isn't big enough"

Screw blizzard, they're part of Activision now. They aren't worth supporting. And bobby is the person that made them split the game into 3 seperate titles because he's on the record as stating that he won't take on an IP that he can't milk with massive DLC and a sequel every year. Its why they dropped the ghostbusters game.

 

[DominicxD]

Yeah guys Activision didn't change anything!