Blizzard Shifts to StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm
Blizzard is now entering into "Heart of the Swarm" development.
In a recent interview with MTV, Rob Pardo, the Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard, revealed the status of the next installment of StarCraft II, "Heart of the Swarm." Unfortunately, he didn't cough up any clues as to when gamers should expect the sequel.
"Now that we've shipped ['Wings of Liberty'], we're just now getting serious about breaking ground on ['Heart of the Swarm']," he said. "We always have a lot of ideas and there's been some design work on it, but hardcore art and programming is just now starting to begin. It's too early to estimate, but as soon as we can get them out there, we'd love to."
He also reassured gamers that it won't be more of the same in "Heart of the Swarm," indicating that the single-player's campaign structure in "Wings of Liberty" would be difficult to recreate using the game's other races.
"Playing Jim Raynor, who's this mercenary, living on this battle cruiser, and has a whole big crew and things like that…that makes a lot of sense for a Terran-based campaign," he said. "It's hard to imagine doing a Zerg-based campaign the same way or, for that matter, doing a Protoss one."
StarCraft II fans should expect an entirely new, sequel-like experience in the single-player campaign, however the multiplayer portion will be more in line with the older StarCraft: Brood War expansion.
"Multiplayer is going to be more like an expansion set sort of vibe," he admitted. "We're not going to ship all brand new races. There will definitely be additions to multiplayer, but that's going to feel like an expansion set."
To read the full interview, head over to MTV here.
They JUST started? Well, I don't expect this to be out in the next two years, seeing how it is blizzard. Diablo III might be out by then.
And I certainly don't expect a GOTY edition with all three expansions for another 5. *sad face*
I was just about to edit my post, but yeah this would not be a surprise at ALL. I don't expect to see a price drop on WoL for years to come. I hate greedy companies = /
Especially when it's the same game as the first one. Albeit with improved graphics and some new units.
What company isn't greedy? They're all out there to make money. If you don't agree with the company's tactics, then don't buy the game.
Hey, that's exactly what I did. No way am I paying $60 for SC2. I haven't and I don't plan to, ever.
I you imagine that Startcraft 2 will cost 180$ in the end (3x60$ each act. Probably the most expensive game all time, considering it's only one game (in 3 acts) and not a game + 2 sequels)
then you can pretty much expect that Diablo 3 will have a subscription model like WoW! Which is really sad, but I don't see Blizzard becoming less greedy so long as they still are one of the top games companies, and more importantly one of the top PC only game companies, but most important of all, it seems to work for them.
so you're not going to pay for a good game, unless you don't like RTS games
when you see proof that HoTS will be 60 bucks, let me know. otherwise its just trolling.
as for D3, i dont understand this speculation about a monthly fee, i just dont see it, and likewise, until blizzard says otherwise i'll assume it will follow the trend of the previous two diablos and be free while utilizing battlenet.
remember WoW is their cash cow and with their secret MMO in the works, I dont expect blizzard to have to charge for diablo3. they have enough money amassed already.
the only thing i find daunting is the fact that blizzard said it would be 18 months till HoTS came out, which in blizzard time sounds right. i'm just not a fan of blizzard time.
I second not being a fan of blizzard time. Especially with Starcraft. I appreciate the effort they put in to balancing the units all out, but really, I think they spend far too much time on that. Just release the game and let the players give feedback to make the process faster. It REALLY doesn't matter until the tournaments start.
Each of these games are full 8-10 hour campaigns plus multiplayer. That's no worse than any Xbox game with XBOX live compatibility, except Blizzard makes good games and most people don't.
Nope.
You have to think though, they don't have to build the engine, just mod the game. So it shouldn't be too long.