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Epic storytelling continued...

Blizzard has decided to pick up pretty much where they left off. StarCraft II will take place four years after the near destruction of the Protoss home world of Aiur and the end of the Brood war. We will get to experience what life is now like for the Protoss after almost losing Aiur to the Zerg invasion as well as what the Zerg are like after the fall of the Hive mind. With Kerrigan escaping the defeat on Aiur we can expect to see her rise to glory as the new leader of the Zerg. Most important to many die hard followers of the franchise is what has become of the famed Jim Raynor, rest assured this will be the first piece to the puzzle Blizzard solves for us...

Thus, the first campaign you will get to play in SCII is the Terran and yes, this means you get to assume the role of Jim Raynor. Jim has fallen on some hard times since the end of the Brood war and is a fugitive on the run from the Terran Dominion. Raynor is a bit of a heavy boozer now, and is still very bitter over the betrayal of Arcturus Mengsk. He leads a group of mercenary freedom fighters in an attempt to try and over throw the corrupt Dominion. Raynor is out manned, out gunned and out funded, and you get the joy of assuming command of his rag tag bunch of badasses in an all out fight for survival.

Since like I said, Raynor's operation is under funded many of the Terran missions will revolve around getting money to better outfit your fleet with new units, upgrades and abilities. You can probably expect a number of missions where you start with a set number of units and have to fight your way through the map rescuing other units and capturing locations to 'steal' cash. Each mission will feature primary objectives as well as bonus objectives and I can only assume that completing the bonus objectives gives you additional income.

RTS meets RPG

Blizzard recognized that it hit a home run in terms of storytelling in the original games. They realized that all RTS single player campaigns are essentially tutorials that get the player up to speed enough to play multiplayer online. The only way to differentiate their product from the rest was to have a story so compelling that it mine-as-well be a screen play.

Blizzard wants to not only duplicate that but improve further, much further this time around. SCII will have rich, deep storylines that include both major plots and subplots. In my opinion Blizzard has really cashed in on a new idea that will evolve their storytelling into the 21st century and leave most players "wowed." The reason I say "most" is because I recognize there are some people completely uninterested in the lore of the StarCraft franchise and could care less about the story so long as they get a game with game play that is fundamentally sound and fun to play.

Almost every RTS has cut scenes that advance the games story, but no RTS has interactable characters, environments and branching dialog trees on top of that. Picture how an RPG tells a story. You walk around talking to various characters with an occasional major event that involves a cut scene, exactly, so why can't an RTS use this formula too?

StarCraft II really takes a big leap out of the 2D world and into the 3D world by creating a fully interactable three dimensional briefing room and leaving the talking picture-in-picture briefing room from the originals in the past where it belongs. During the Terran campaign when you aren't in a mission blowing your enemies to smithereens you will be on the bridge of Jim Raynor's flagship, the Battlecruiser Hyperion.

On the bridge there are a number of different elements of the environment you can interact with including other characters; this is where the branching dialog trees and all of the subplots come into play. The first character you will probably notice when you see the bridge is Tikus Finley. If you can't find Tikus he's the guy standing in the corner wearing a giant Marine suit.

The dialog trees will allow you to ask the character basic questions that serve as a kind of tutorial, but they will also allow you to talk about subplots like the morale on the ship, potential mutiny's and other subplots that help flesh out the entire single player experience.

Besides Tikus Finley there is another character on the bridge you can talk to, Raynor's second in command Matt Horner. He can give you information about your last mission as well as further involve you in subplots. The primary element of the bridge however, is the star map. The star map is what shows your available missions within the galaxy. Unlike the original games, SCII is not as linear because now you are given the freedom to choose which order you want to play the missions in.

Each mission gives you details about the planets environment, history and which unit(s) would be most useful in completing the task at hand. The RPG influences don't stop at dialog trees, the piece of information about which units are useful on certain missions opens a new part of the single player game.

You can leave the bridge and explore other parts of the Hyperion that lead to other subplots as well as main cut scenes that move along the overall story arc. One of these other rooms is the Armory. In the Armory there is another character, Chief Engineer Swan; he is your ships mechanic and an overall technologically savvy guy. Conversations with him will lead to further subplot advancements and maybe some knowledge about new units. New units you say? Yep.

The main function of the Armory is not to stand there and say "quit lookin' at me swan," (no I don't think that's an option in the dialog tree but you're right we should go on the forums right now and recommend it) it's to use the money you've earned during missions to buy new units and unlock new upgrades and abilities. This is where the information you got from the star map about which units are useful for which missions comes in handy. Battlecruisers cost quite a bit of money so don't think you'll just hop in and buy the big guns first, you'll have to work your way up to that.

The third room on the Hyperion that can be visited is the Cantina; fitting since Raynor is an alcoholic now. During Blizzards single player campaign the trip to the Cantina gets cut short when Zeratul makes his triumphant return to SCII. This is an example of how visiting different rooms in the Hyperion is used to advance the story lines.

Wrap it up already!

During Raynor's short conversation with an apparently injured Zeratul, Zeratul forecasts the complete destruction of all life in the sector due to the return of the Xel'Naga. For those who don't remember the Xel'Naga they are an ancient race believed to be extinct, but once were the most powerful and dominating species in the galaxy.

However, they have apparently returned and are searching for artifacts that seem to be very powerful. I don't know if the Xel'Naga is the reason for Zeratul's premonition of destruction or if it's the Xel'Naga's use of the artifacts power but either way it's not good news for Raynor and the rest of the Koprulu sector.

So that's all I have for the single player mode right now, as always there will be far more developments as the game progresses toward a release date, which as always, will be whenever Blizzard feels the game is ready to ship. While all of the units and structures are still up in the air one thing is for sure, we can expect a wild and crazy ride from the storyline writers over at Blizzard. For more information on the Protoss race, the Terran race or the graphics and gameplay, see the other previews. With a little luck hopefully we'll get a taste of what the Zerg will be like soon enough.

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