StarCraft 2 multiplayer ‘spectacular from point one’

Blizzard has reassured its fans that the multiplayer in StarCraft 2, which will separate its three playable races into one main game and two expansions, will be “spectacular from point one”.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com last week during the launch of World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King at HMV Oxford Street, Blizzard executive Paul Sams said gamers won’t need all three products to have a “great multiplayer” experience.

Fans have expressed concern that the full StarCraft 2 multiplayer experience won’t be available with the release of the main product, given that the playable races’ single-player campaigns – for the Terran, Zerg and Protoss – will be divided up into three products. The first game in the series will be Terran: Wings of Liberty, followed by Zerg: Heart of Swarm and Protoss: Legend of the Void.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but we do know that each new game will come with upgrades and changes to the multiplayer, as well as a fully realised campaign. The initial campaign will feature Terran Jim Raynor, with a meta-game that involves upgrading technologies. The second, featuring the Zerg, will have a meta-game involving diplomacy.

While Sams didn’t go into detail, he said that “if you’re a multiplayer guy, well guess what, upon initial load, you’re rocking and rolling”, before adding that multiplayer is “going to be great”.

Sams insisted that the main game and two expansions strategy means that gamers will get a better game, and sooner, than they would have done otherwise.

“I think the vast majority have been pretty excited by the concept,” he said. “I think that we’re going to be able to do a much better job on telling the story of each of those races in a period of time that we’re covering with StarCraft II than we would have been able to had we done it in a traditional way. We’re going to be able to go into a level of depth that we wouldn’t have otherwise got.

“Our plan was already to do two expansion sets and this is what they are, right? It’s basically the core product and two expansions. We were doing that one way or the other, but I think we would have never been able to get into the level of depth for each race that we are going to this way. I think it’s going to provide for an experience that is far superior, and it’s going to provide for an opportunity to have the game sooner than gamers would have otherwise, because had we done all three together it would have taken longer because we wouldn’t have wanted to make the compromises with each campaign that I think we would have had to, to achieve a reasonable development timeline that the customers are expecting from us now that we announced.

“I genuinely, wholeheartedly believe that it was the right choice and it’s the one that’s going to be the best experience for the players. The thing is multiplayer is going to be spectacular from point one, so it’s not like you’ve got to have the other two to have great multiplayer. So if you’re a multiplayer guy, well guess what, upon initial load, you’re rocking and rolling. It’s going to be great.”