Blizzard announces Starcraft II, Korea implodes with joy

by Alexander Sliwinski on May 19th 2007 3:16AM

It all lead up to this: StarCraft II. After months of speculation Blizzard announced today at their World Wide Invitational in Korea that their next big project is StarCraft II for PC.

Blizzard president Mike Morhaime says, "With StarCraft II, we'll be able to do everything we wanted to do with the original StarCraft and more ... We recognize that expectations are high following the long-running popularity of the original game, but we plan to meet those expectations and deliver an engaging, action-packed, competitive experience that StarCraft players and strategy gamers worldwide will enjoy." Meanwhile, IGN's man in Korea, Charles Onyett says, "SC2 looks, at least visually, strikingly similar to SC1 - both in unit and map designs."

This has been Blizzard's longest gap between releases. Blizzard had a consistent two-year release schedule (not including expansion packs) since 1994 with the original WarCraft. That streak was broken in 2006 when StarCraft: Ghost was ~~killed~~ indefinitely postponed. Although no release date has been given for StarCraft II, hopefully gamers won't have to worry about another installment of the series being "postponed."

Starcraft 2

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Update: Here are some higher quality videos care of Game Videos.

Source

Tags: blizzard, diablo, korea, Mac, PC, sc2, starcraft 2, starcraft ii, starcraft2, StarcraftIi, warcraft, world of starcraft, wow, wwi

Reader Comments (102)

F**k Starcraft 2.

Thank goodness it isn't a first person Lost Vikings game. No offense, but it doesn't right or logical for Blizzard announce a sequel to a some obscure IP such as Lost Vikings in such a huge manner.

I love Starcraft. SC24EVA!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!

Uh looks like Starcraft 1 visually? I don't think so. Maybe the interface. http://au.media.pc.ign.com/media/850/850126/img_4560183.html
That doesn't look like sc. It looks like shit. Everything is too big, buildings and units are weird looking. Graphic style looks terrible. Will still get it of course, must finish campaign.

@ #1....Wow, what a waste of a post, glad you are up at 3 am. I am actually very happy about this. Go Blizzard. No postponements!!!!!

This is huge. Never been a huge starcraft fan (more AOE), but hopefully this puts the RTS genre on it's head.

about fukin' time the preview looks fukin' awsome but the screens not so much
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUXoekeDIW8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fforums%2Eexophase%2Ecom%2Fshowthread%2Ephp%3Ft%3D1918

Graphics look killer for an alpha release, I know not many of you understand the process that games usually go through especially blizzard games. Graphics in this stage do not mean anything to me (even though I think they look fantastic), the original SC, WoW, and War3 screens were very obscure and there unit models were horribly done. However, in the future they will refine the interface like they always do, there are a plethora of things in these screenshots which are place holders.

HOLY CRAP OF AWESOME!
*Reserves Copy*

Lurker, I understand the process of games. Where is it stated this is an Alpha build?

My name is Michael J. Caboose...and I...hate.......BABIES!

i guess its over for Project Revolution then

www.wc3campaigns.net/revolution/

Nowhere, but it is not beta...therefore it is either alpha or something else all together. I have been following blizzard games since 1995, if you have ever seen blizzard work or any other large game developer than you would understand never to jump to conclusions when a game is just announced. That is one reason why so many developers I talk to hate showing their games to gamers, because they automatically assume it is done when they see a work in progress, the media is usually a little less scrupulous.

Silent Xenocide - Please read the words, my friend. In unit and map DESIGN, they are visually similar, and despite the much better graphics, that much is true from the screens we've seen so far. It is very Starcraftian. I doubt you'd disagree with that.

Blargh! Excitement.

KIKIKI :) yay this is great...

Yeah, I'm a lot less excited about this than I would have been Diablo 3.

Mister Disco, I just feel it looks too much like warcraft 3. What with the rotating 3d views and all. The graphics seem too complex. Way to many lights and stuff. And those photon cannons look weird and huge. I mean of course I will still get it..

@13 way to massively over react, some people don't like Starcraft, grow up.

Pfft sony kicks ur ass. I bet your one of those Koreans that simultaneously plays SC while watching the SC channel featuring the SC championshiips while you drink your SC flavored bev

Hopefully Starcraft 2 isn't just Starcraft 1 with prettier graphics. Something tells me that Starcraft 2 will be light on gameplay shattering innovations or improvements because of the huge inertia that Korean pro gamers have created in becoming so acclimated to all of Starcraft's gameplay nuances. The probability of the status quo ruling is high.

Yea but lurker, obviously I realise the graphics and such aren't done, hell I wish they were dumbed down, but I don't think the graphical style will change that much by the time it comes out.

Silent Xenocide:

Well actually the first Starcraft is based off of a modified Warcraft II engine, so it is only right that Starcraft 2 would either run off a modified War III engine or look fairly similar to War III. People always complained back in the day it was "Orcs in space" because of the similarities in graphics.

I like the exaggerator structure to unit size. It was always one of my favorite things in SC, to feel kine of close to my units...I still love TA and AoE, but I always felt too many times did they pull back too fair and I never got to appreciate the actual unit models. Nice to be in the "thick of it."

Thank god it's not another MMO. Looking forward to seeing Starcraft return. Don't care if the graphics are not over the top. I still enjoy the orginal StarCraft 9 years after its release. I'm just wondering how much of the voice talent the will return for the sequel.

http://www.youtube.com/v/iJB-Z54R61s gameplay vid.

that is PERFECT. this is exactly what i wanted them to do. counting the seconds now!

Silent Xenocide:

The graphics style will change, here take a look at some alpha SC images:

http://home.planet.nl/~aggel005/alphabeta/ealpha.html

They contrast, and color scheme does not usually change, however the graphic/textures will shift sometimes the UI is change when they update or enhancements are made to the original graphics.

As long as I can zoom out quite a bit I'll be fine. It looks better in gameplay. Nukes look really good. Just hope I am not waiting till 2009 to get this game.

Personally, I do not like the shifting 3D angles, I wish it was a stationary 3D game. Games Where you can change the camera angels always piss me off, because I always end up screwing with the camera angles and then I can never get back to what I originally had.

But again, so far everything looks like it is moving along smoothly and we should see a beta here by the end of the year.

No Diablo 3??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Silent Xenocide: Cross your fingers even for a mid 2008 release, personally...I think it will slip into a early-mid 2009 release (I so hope I am wrong).

Lurker. It won't matter. Now that I think about it, there is no way my comp can support this game. I'm going to have to get a completely new one for SC2.

Silent Xenocide:

LoL, shouldn't cost you more than a few hundred bucks to upgrade to a new rig. 500-600 dollars should get you ever thing you need.

Ok nevermind after watching this vid http://flvs.daum.net/flvPlayerOut.swf?vid=6JfhDzScj8k$
I think the graphics are good.

Those seige tanks look like something out of Day of the Tentacle.

Best day ever.

Wow looks amazing. I think there won't be too many new gameplay innovations though. Blizzard got things pretty perfect with SC.

StarCraft One just had an update 3 weeks ago. They balance and refine everything forever.

And now http://www.blizzard.com has a new startup screen that says STARCRAFT II, HELL, IT'S ABOUT TIME. And it has all the high quality videos looking way better than on YouTube!

So, where's that next-gen MMO at then?

...I was hoping for Hello Kitty Island Adventure...

But seriously, how long will it take before we can actually PLAY Starcraft 2? Two, three more years? I'm not sure I can wait that long.

What happend with my Protoss? Looks like they ran nuts with the new protoss units which is a bit sad.
I love the idea of a new SC but I would like them to work some more on the graphics of the units... what is up in the articles about all those Mega death weapons on all the ships?

@43: Ofcourse it's still in secret development as WoW is still striking in the big bucks, they wouldn't want to be a competitor to their own product.

@ Rubang B:

Damn you, I was coming here to tell people about the splash screen myself. I think, "Hell, it's about time" should be the slogan for SC2.

Anyway, yeah I didn't think i'd care about this really but after seeing the stuff posted here and on http://www.blizzard.com I'm stoked. I could only get about 1/2 way through the original, but I'm highly looking forward to my mediocre performance in 3D.

Yeah...the starcraft2.com page went live a little while ago.

ahh ive downloaded everything from http://www.starcraft2.com

ahhhh!

.....and this story is important, why again? I don't see a '360' tag under the title. I don't see the words 'Halo 3' anywhere in the text of the story. Therefore........I don't care.

I feel like wanting to scream like a little girl. Man, I'm such a fanboy, this made my day.

As I said before about it was in alpha stage, I was wrong, it is pre-alpha. What I said before, however still applies, there are going to be A LOT of changes, come to expect it...and just stop freaking out of the graphics are some minute issues you may have because quite frankly it is probably frivolous at this point due tot he fact they are changing aspects of the game daily.

"Though the game, in pre-alpha right now, does not support DX10 right now, it hopefully will in the future. The game will be playable on both Windows XP and Vista operating systems. StarCraft 2 will release when it's ready, says Blizzard."

And all of Korea had one collective orgasm and collapsed. I know I'm excited.

This is exactly what I was hoping for them to do. I was afraid that they were going to dilute the game with another race, now I hope they can really separate the races into each something unique. It is still too early to really see what the game is going to be like. Remember the first announcement of Warcraft III and its RPG follow the hero around camera? It didn't pan out and I don't think we should hold them to anything but the concept just yet.

The cinematic team again go above and beyond, hopefully we can get a full-length movie out of them sometime!

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Blizzard announces Starcraft II, Korea implodes with joy

Starcraft 2

Reader Comments (102)

Posted: May 19th 2007 3:20AM Geirskogul said

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