With only three days before StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm invades store shelves worldwide, fans are eager to devour all the news pouring out from Blizzard as they build up anticipation for the second expansion. Today, however, StarCraft 2 Game Director Dustin Browder brought out some news regarding the third and final expansion, Legacy of the Void.
During a recent Reddit AMA, the Blizzard veteran was asked where the company would be a year from now in terms of developing the third expansion, to which Browder revealed they were already working on missions, storyline, and scripts.
This should come as no surprise to those who know how far Blizzard likes to work in advance, considering StarCraft 2 had playable builds in 2005. The team who completed Heart of the Swarm have already transitioned over to Legacy of the Void, save for a few artists who were sent to work on the upcoming Blizzard All Stars.
Given the recent online woes of both Diablo 3 and SimCity, some fans were concerned about Blizzard’s ability to keep servers running when each expansion is released – however, Blizzard’s own Alan Dabiri was on-hand to promise fans that they were adequately prepared:
“We’ve learned a lot from our previous launches, including the Wings of Liberty launch, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure this launch goes as smoothly as possible. We have the advantage that we’ve been building on an existing platform that’s been evolving for several years.”
Legacy of the Void is planned to be the last title of the trilogy, and will feature a Protoss-centric campaign. As the aging race faces extinction, it will be up to Zeratul to save them from utter annihilation.
Of course, players will have to go through Heart of the Swarm first to see how these events are put into motion. While vengeance may be Kerrigan’s theme, it may end up as Zeratul’s ultimate achievement.
Given that almost 2 years came and went between the StarCraft 2:Wings of Liberty and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, players might be in for quite a wait before Legacy takes the reigns.
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be released on March 12th, 2013 for PC and Mac.
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Source: Blizzard
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I really hope they go into detail about this expansion at Blizzcon later this year and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for it. I’m sure I’ll love Heart of the Swarm but having to wait about two and a half years for an expansion to a strategy game was brutal. Though I suppose if you’re one of those pro-players you were glad because it gave you plenty of time to polish your play for the tournaments instead of having to learn all over again after a year.
Are they having Blizzcon this year? If so, great. If not, that’s too bad I guess.
Anyway, glad to see the story for the next expansion is already in the works. Looking forward to playing it in 2017!
Yep. Blizzcon is coming this year but unfortunately it’s not until November. We have a long time to wait.
I would love Starcraft 2 if it wasn’t so damned difficult. Seriously, I’ve played at least 30 games and lost every one. Haven’t even gotten close to beating someone. It’s a great game just really hard (IMO).
I recommend watching some youtube videos of shoutcasters or some replays from the pros…when I started multiplayer I lost every game too, watched most of Day9′s (which is the one I recommend, you can youtube him, he gives good analysis as to why you should do a, b, and c) shoutcasts and started to win more than I lose…will give you a good working basis as to how to play multiplayer
just mass build void rays you are guaranteed to win, unless your opponent has some good anti air ready. 30-40 void rays = guaranteed win. it may piss off your opponents but isn’t that already gonna happen if you beat them another way? lol
starcraft 2 Heart Of The Swarm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pIT59FltrY
….I was under the impression that the story was already written at the same time as Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm…are.. are they making this up as they go along?
I get that the games would be put together seperately, but I figured they would have the story down from the get go.
Scripting… Mission details… balancing… art work… musical score… voice acting… marketing… and the main thing: things ALWAYS change on the go. I just got done beating campaign the other day and I can’t wait 2 1/2 years for legacy… but we’re gonna have to.
Actually, from what they said there won’t be any gigantic changes to the multiplayer of SC2 from LotV. This means that the biggest problem, game balancing of the more important half of the game (online), won’t be an issue. I can see LotV coming out MUCH more quickly than HOTS because it’ll probably be primarily a single player game with UI tweaks.
I’m hoping this means that the single player LotV will be MUCH longer than HOTS. Perhaps there will be the Protoss campaign like everyone is expecting, and then a final short campaign within the game that involves wrapping up all three factions. That would sort out some of the questions people have had about it being a Protoss-centered game but Raynor and Kerrigan having unfinished story.