> I need Starcraft 3 badly :)
I do too, but I don't think Blizzard are going to be the ones to make it[1].
I do too, but I don't think Blizzard are going to be the ones to make it[1].
What made SC interesting, like most Blizzard IP of the time, was also the well written story lines with amazing character arcs, that kept people invested, and not that it was a strategy game of space marines versus organic aliens versus energy aliens. They even made sure to give story-time to the regular units as you unlocked them, not just the heroes.
There were a lot of other similar strategy games at the time, and they all flopped (anyone remember Submarine Titans?). The first alpha release of SC was also mocked for being basically "Warcraft in space" so Blizzard had to step up and make SC special, and they did. The second game was less impactful than the original, but still good and memorable due to the story.
Maybe I'm out of touch with modern gaming, but I don't see how this can succeed. If I want to play SC I can just get the real deal, and not just something that looks like it.
The RTS games market is relatively small and niche nowadays and already saturated with quality established franchises from the past, so Zerospace would need to bring some new kick-ass revolutionary ideas to the table and not be just be "copy my homework but change it a bit" variant of SC.
Raynor's literal final line to Kerrigan in SC1 was "It may not be tomorow, darlin', it may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured; I'm the man who's gonna kill you one day. I'll be seeing you." Meanwhile in the opening cutscene of 2 he's pining over an old photo of her before she became a Zerg. Mind you any romantic relationship between Raynor and Kerrigan in SC1 was only possibly hinted at, it was never explicitly established.
Also they literally never even mentioned Fenix, Raynor's best Protoss buddy, in SC2 Wings of Liberty despite Kerrigan betraying and murdering him.
spoiler warning!
like most characters killed in SC1 he does pop up, specifically in LOTV
(not a good one though)
I think when an IP is over 10 years old, you don't need to warn for spoilers anymore, Dumbledore dies in the end.
Legacy of the Void was released in November 2015
Does every new harry potter book or movie that comes out reset the timer on spoiling that dumbledore dies?
This isn't mickey mouse and disney extending copyright law into perpetuity, this is a nicety among people to not spoil things until people have a change to experience it themselves.
Characters and stories is everything. It keeps consumers invested and loyal to the franchise, even when the gameplay is boring and repetative, instead of jumping ship to a game with equal mechanics. It's why so many still cosplay as Kerrigan, Mario, Link, etc.
It's how so many people remember Ezio and Altair instead of the other forgettable characters that followed.
I see fromsoft cosplay and the main character with no lines as well. It may be as factor but it's far from "everything". Bioshock infinite was a crappy game with a good cosplay character who most who cosplay as her have no idea what bioshock infinite is.
Meanwhile the non-campaign gameplay, while polished, is hardly innovative (a common issue with the commercial RTS games compared to the fan-made ones).
Is there an alternative universe version of StarCraft which had good writing? Because the one I played had pretty standard SciFi plots and characters. And while Sons of Liberty was adequate if perfunctory, the writing in Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void is some of worst writing to make it into a finished media product.
StarCraft succeeded based on its technical and audiovisual polish, despite the lackluster writing.
That being said, Zerospace and Stormgate both look cartonish, but that's the graphic style they have chosen. They have budgets and teams a small fraction of the size of Blizzard, so the lack of visual polish can be forgiven if the game mechanics are good.
I agree about the visuals - they need to invest more into the art/visuals.
I miss the 90s, can you tell?
In any case, I expect them both to be good. I'll probably spend too many hours playing both of these games.
Either way, that's arguably not a bad thing. Approximately a decade before SC2 was a golden age of RTS games. Homeworld and Red Alert 2 came out around that time. Give me more of that and I'm happy.
Your best hope is that they license the IP to a company that actually cares, like Bethesda did with Black Isle for Fallout New Vegas.
Oh, or if there is better tech, nobody really uses it, everyone focuses on multiplayer because $$$.
One of the games if you're interested in an anaylsis: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nbiVbd_CEIA
Call me back when that kind of tech is included so that I can play against it when playing a $30 mid-range (not AAA, not indie) especially RPG game or any type of team game (Dota).