Blizzard Unleashes Final, Jaw-Dropping StarCraft II Launch Trailer

John Funk

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Blizzard Unleashes Final, Jaw-Dropping StarCraft II Launch Trailer

If you weren't already excited for next week's StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, this trailer might go a long way in changing your mind. Stop reading this and watch it right this instant.


So, I really, really wasn't intending on writing anything more about SC2 until the game was actually out, but then I saw this: Blizzard has been running a small viral promotion on the StarCraft II site asking gamers to join the Terran Dominion [http://us.starcraft2.com/dominion/], and every would-be commander that joined and took the "Which unit are you?" quiz added another tally to the pile.

As more and more gamers signed up, Blizzard released more SC2 goodies - concept art, propaganda posters, even audio logs - but for the most part, it was stuff that was "pretty cool, but not worth going crazy for." It seems that the developer was saving the best for last, though: At 100%, Blizzard released the above launch trailer, "Ghosts of the Past." And boy, was it worth the wait.

Without giving too much away, I'll just say that the trailer covers both the series' past - Mengsk's betrayal of Kerrigan in the first game - and events to come in the upcoming sequel. Jim Raynor is a broken man, but even down-and-out heroes can find something worth fighting for.

Yes, I'm a huge StarCraft fan so my opinion is biased. But cheesy dialogue aside - and it's the good cheesy, even - this trailer is just cool, and it just goes to show that even the standard SC2 game-engine cinematics will probably look almost as good as Blizzard's legendary pre-rendered clips. This is some stellar stuff, guys - holy crap. The game is actually coming out, and this trailer only makes the six-day wait that much harder.

Maybe if I cryogenically freeze myself I'll be able to get to one of the midnight launch events [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102249-Blizzard-Spawns-More-StarCraft-II-Launch-Events-Worldwide] sooner.

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microhive

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Mar 27, 2009
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Blizzard's cinematic department should start making it into a full fletched movie. I'm impressed by the quality a gaming such as Blizzard can produce unlike some other company we know too well...
 

BboyTeddyBear

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agree with red marine. blizzard has had incredibly topnotch cgi dedication on detail since Wc3. (i have the dvd cinematics disc) and their trailers ALWAYS show they have the ability to make top notch cinematics. why not a movie?
 

V8 Ninja

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I've never really played Starcraft in my life and I can tell that was a pretty epic trailer.
 

David Bray

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Dunno about jaw dropping. It was good but the animations no where near what Halo Wars or FF is putting out there. It reminded me a lot of Freelancer shots.

The content though is badass. I cant wait for this
 

findler

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Jun 19, 2009
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Ugh, can't watch this since I'm at work... must wait. I wanna hear more about Tychus Findlay. Him and I have the same last name, so I'm going to pretend he's my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson.
 

Keava

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Mar 1, 2010
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Not impressed. Technically its very good of course, but that's something you take for granted these days especially with a 100 million bucks budget on a game. Anything less would be a disgrace.
Let's not fool each other, making such detailed characters with todays software and hardware is not exactly rocket-science. You build a base in Maya from polys, take it to zBrush and sculpt it relatively easily if you just know the anatomy, and with 20 or more artists working purely on concept art you really don't sweat that much. CGI business is not that hard to get into anymore since you don't need re arrange every polygon manually in Maya.

I am however disappointed in the plot mostly. It's just generic. It's almost like a parody of a 'serious sci-fi movie'. All elements of todays hollywood production are slapped there. When technology allows for much easier generation of models, innovation is what starts to count. And in this field the trailer i find lacking and uninspiring. I really hope the whole campaign plot wont be a love story hidden between the explosions and guerrilla warfare.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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THIS is why I don't understand the reasoning behind the upcoming Warcraft movie being live-action. If Blizzard put out a two-hour movie of that quality, people would come from OTHER DIMENSIONS to see it.
 

Radeonx

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Well, I just creamed my pants.
Although, I'm considering shooting myself because I can't play it until August, but shit happens, I suppose.
 

TheGhostOfSin

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May 21, 2008
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A thought occurs, how would a new gamer know what type of game Starcraft 2 was from just that trailer?
I mean, is there any indication at all of it being an RTS in that video?

I'm in work the day after this comes out and I know for a fact that we are going to get dozens of people trying to return it because they thought it was an FPS.

And before you all start saying "But it's on PC, we're smarter than consolers". There are plenty of PC gamers that come into our shop who are exactly stupid enough to do this.

The funny thing is, we will warn them all, about what type of game it is, what it's specs are and that we don't return PC games. But they never listen and we have to put up with people that think that a nationwide store policy can be ignored just for them..

Oh, I'm ranting... Sorry about that, forget all that. I'm quite looking forward to it :)
 

Keava

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The Rogue Wolf said:
THIS is why I don't understand the reasoning behind the upcoming Warcraft movie being live-action. If Blizzard put out a two-hour movie of that quality, people would come from OTHER DIMENSIONS to see it.
In 2001 there was a full CGI Final Fantasy movie, Spirits Within. It didn't sell well despite it had amazing animation for that time. It actually ruined Square's plans to start their own movie studio. Companies don't want to risk it because the infamous Uncanny Valley effect turns away people in longer projects. 5-10 minutes is fine, but after that you start to notice every unnatural motion of muscles and it gets annoying in the long run for many.
 

ZombieGenesis

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I already saw the trailer, but that doesn't answer my main question.

What IS Starcraft? And why should I buy it?
I get the feeling that Blizzard is concentrating their marketing on people who played the original game, because I have no idea what it is.
 

Xersues

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Dec 11, 2009
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Ooo ahh, prerendered CGI about a game that refused to be different from the game it once was. Would rather watch a starcraft movie over playing the game.
 

Loonerinoes

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Never really played starcraft, not even the first to be honest, so I can't judge with that in mind. Still, does mean I'm more detached from the hype as well.

Visually it is on-par with some of the best trailers I've seen come out as of late, no doubt about that. Scriptwise and dialogue...eh...didn't draw me in to be honest. Or at least, for frame of refference, in spite of really not liking where the WotLK expansion went overall, I can definately say that its intro (not the ending, but the intro) with Arthas was scriptwise far better-done than this. Or to put it more plainly...that one really gave me goosebumps...this one didn't. So hrm...

Still, I for one liked Warcraft lore, particularly that of the frozen throne, so there's THAT which might've muddled my judgement there. So I guess if the target is to spark it up within the Starcraft fans, as I've said,...not my place to judge there I think. But I'm sure it won't detract too much from the game and will in the end work out just fine.
 

oliveira8

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chemicalreaper said:
EDIT: At 1:41 in the video, that is a blatant copy the Halo 3 "Hornet." And at 1:07, they didn't even bother trying to disguise the fact that it's a direct knock-off of the Star Wars clone gunship.
I'm half sure that the design of those 2 ships were around before Clone Wars and Halo 3, considering they were in the first game 12 years ago.

Edit:Ah! I was wrong. But so were you. Those ships are the same ship. It's a banshee.

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Banshee

Looks like nothing from CW or Halo.