Four to six missions into the new campaign for Blizzard's Heart of the Swarm expansion for Star Craft 2, Kerrigan is again working with the Zerg. Blizzard won't say why, but it appears that Kerrigan, in her de-Zergified form, is fighting to reunite as many slimy, spiky creatures under her banner as possible. In this campaign she won't simply be a character that walks and talks, but a fully controllable, upgradeable hero unit useable in nearly all of Heart of the Swarm's 20 or so missions.
No doubt many have questions about what Blizzard's doing with its multiplayer mode that's popular in competitive gaming circuits like, if you'll excuse The blatnat advertisement, but so far that's all being kept under wraps. I can say there will be new multiplayer units and maps in Heart of the Swarm, though no specifics are available. There will also be changes to Battle.net, mostly related to getting an organized Marketplace live so players can easily sort, rate and even purchase user-generated content.
Even without new multiplayer details, Blizzard did show off two missions from the new campaign, and there've been some changes as to how everything works. If you remember in Wings of Liberty, the campaign followed war-hardened malcontent Jim Raynor who, aboard his ship the Hyperion, planet-hopped his way to saving Kerrigan and struggling against the irritating Terran megalomanic Arcturus Mengsk. In Heart of the Swarm, it's all about Kerrigan.
She travels the stars in a Zerg Leviathan "ship," but won't be able to wander room to room and interact with characters adventure game-style like Raynor could in Wings of Liberty. And that's not just because a Leviathan is a Zerg creature and something nobody should want to see the inside of. It sounds like Blizzard is leaving the mid-mission exploration element behind entirely. Instead, Kerrigan will land on the surfaces of planets and, depending on the planet, the background will change. On that screen she'll interact with a few repulsive, oozing Zerg characters. One hands out mission briefings, the other manages the new upgrade system.
As before, completing missions earns new units and unlocks. While on sorties in Heart of the Swarms you'll earn DNA by exploring the maps and killing some of the sentient creatures roaming the map, like yeti scampering across the surface of the snow world Kaldir. There will be a few basic upgrades for each unit. Roaches can be upgraded with stronger armor, a more damaging attack, and a higher regenerative capacity, but the real benefits come when you mutate.
Once enough upgrades are made, an option to mutate is unlocked, giving you two paths of advancement where choosing one locks out the other. With a Roach, you can either unlock the ability to move while burrowed or to heal more rapidly while underground, in addition to gaining life back whenever it makes a kill. The Zergling can be mutated to jump at enemies when within range, and the Baneling can be upgraded so that when it's killed it doesn't explode, but splits into two, lesser Banelings and keeps on rolling.
Kerrigan is serious business.
The thought of a multiplying army of corrosive Baneling bombs probably makes a competitive StarCraft player's brain start to bubble. Don't worry, these are just single-player additions. What I like about them is they appear to significantly shift how the unit performs in combat, and as an added bonus changes the look of the unit. A jumping Zergling, called a Raptor, gets a giant fin down its back like Mohawk from Gremlins 2. And in case my Gremlins 2 reference went over your head, I apologize for being old. Please don't feel like you have to watch it. I haven't seen it in years and can't remember if it's any good.
Anyway, the varied mission structure that worked so well in Wings of Liberty should stay intact for Heart of the Swarm. This means that each single-player sortie is a lot more interesting than simply building a giant force and tossing it at the enemy base. In a mission on Char, Kerrigan has to run around the map trying to collect scattered eggs faster than a rebellious Zerg unit named Za'gara. All the while your main base is getting attacked. It's possible to kill Za'gara as she's hunting for eggs on the map. Though she'll respawn, it opens up a window of time where you can pull ahead in the total number of eggs collected.
In the other mission on frosty Kaldir, frigid storms blast across the map every minute or so. Initially the gusts of snow freeze your units in ice, but after enough DNA is collected from the indigenous yeti, you're able to resist the cold and continue moving and fighting when the storms kick up. These storms come in handy, because Protoss are also on the planet and trying to send out a warning about your presence. To stop them three sensor towers need to be knocked out, but surprise, they're protected by Protoss
Zealots, Stalkers, Photon Cannons and more. It's a good idea to keep Kerrigan and her army of Roaches out of harm's way until the snows blow in.
All the while Kerrigan is running around with a rifle and acting very much like a character out of Warcraft 3. Between missions she'll power up, get boosts to her statistics like damage and health, and unlock new skills to use on the battlefield. In the game right now are four total skill sets, though you can choose only one before starting a mission. The Spec Ops set gives Kerrigan the ability to cast an area of effect attack that damages and stuns foes, as well as split off a shadow version of herself that fights alongside her. In her Corruption line, she can blanket enemies with spores that cause those affected to take more damage, and even instant-kill select targets, causing skittering Broodlings to burst from their corpses. Having tried out both lines, switching between the two definitely gives Kerrigan different styles of play
I was worried for a moment that including Kerrigan as such a central figure in combat might make me not want to use her for fear of losing her, but Blizzard's addressed that. If Kerrigan dies, she can respawn a little while later. The game says her DNA is being reconstituted, or something. Don't ask me how it works.
There's still no StarCraft 2: Heart Of The Swarm release date, as is typical with Blizzard games, but I'm fairly hopeful we'll see it some time in 2012. According to Blizzard, Wings of Liberty will be required in order to play Heart of the Swarm, at least in North America and Europe, and though there's no final price point it sounds as though Heart of the Swarm will be priced lower than Wings. While it may be a bit of wait for the next StarCraft II, judging by Blizzard's history, it'll likely be worth it. Or am I wrong?
