StarCraft II Single Player Hands-On

17 Aug 2009 at 12:46:00 by Gunnar Petzall

There really are only so many things you can do with a "mission" in any game: be it an RPG, an adventure game or an RTS. The latter genre is almost infamous for unimaginative missions and it's only fun to "Destroy Zerg Base" so many times. Blizzard is trying to change all this with StarCraft II with more individually designed missions and a dedicated Story Mode instead of a linear story like its predecessor. Dustin Browder, lead designer for StarCraft II, told us "each one of these missions should hopefully feel like its own unique mini-game experience, not just another base battle."

We were invited over to Blizzard HQ last month (again) to try out the single player mode of StarCraft II, and we have gathered everything you could possibly want to know about the game in this preview. Don't forget to read all our coverage, from this preview to our interviews, as well as checking out the new screenshots and the gameplay video footage and all the StarCraft II news.

New Type of Missions

First thing is first, the single player mode will no longer be used as a mere tutorial for multiplayer, but a gameplay experience in its own right. It will be "very different [from] the multiplayer experience, that really gives you a chance to try out some new mechanics and play a crazy little mini-game each time you sit down to play a mission," Browder told us.

Examples include traditional collection missions, but with the twist of a race with the Zerg for the same item, or resource gathering in an environment where lava can kill any unit by touch and will drench the mineral patch in irregular intervals.

From the new map mechanics, I liked the this one best. It kept me on my toes, looking out for my workers as the lava tide changed, as well as trying to keep Zerg from attacking me from other directions. It felt a little bit more like a challenge than most single player missions in the original StarCraft.

Another interesting mechanic was a map we were not able to play; a map that uses the daytime cycle as part of its mechanic.  Zerg will only attack at night in this map, making it almost like a horror-map.

Heroes won't be such a big part of the story any more either. In the original game, only two missions did not feature a hero unit. Blizzard obviously took this idea to a whole new level in WarCraft III, but has taken a big step backwards for StarCraft II. While it's cool to control a hero, it's less cool to have to protect him/her like a prized possession. "If you have got to hide Raynor in the back of your base it's not cool," said Metzen and we can only agree.

A couple of maps will still feature hero characters, but they will be designed to be more classical "adventure" type games such as the installation missions from the original game. In that case the hero is needed to complete the mission. Metzen also mentioned possibly allowing a gimmick to let the hero "take a knee" instead of blowing up, therefore forcing you "to get a Medic there to get him back on his feet."

To substitute that feeling of really "cool" units on in battle there are instead very tough Mercenaries you can hire from the Cantina. They are like regular units, but tougher and meaner, as well as being able to do special abilities regular units can't. They show up in the mission, but if they die it doesn't matter, and they will be available for next mission anyway. You don't gain anything by keeping them alive, except possible Achievements Blizzard has yet to unveil. They take part in an armed conflict, and people die. That simple.

There are about 30 missions in total, of which 19-20 are the "critical path" according to Browder, "but that will also grow or shrink as we get closer to shipping and make more decisions."  Both the total number of missions and the critical missions might change in number, depending on the mechanics, or if they think of new ones the team just has to get in.

Sometimes the player will have to decide the outcome of an event, like saving one of two characters, but the majority of missions are missions you can go back to play later if you'd rather complete a few other ones first. The mission giver might sound like it's an emergency, but he, she or it will be waiting for you, just like WoW quest givers.

One nice new feature is an autosave feature for single player. Just in case you forget to save yourself, there is now an additional line of defence against any sudden power losses.

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