Starcraft II info and artwork video – Hell, it’s about time

We couldn’t agree more with that tagline. As the announcement was just made, a rush of info about StarCraft II has invaded the QJ offices (and has successfully made three quarters of our staff geek out simultaneously, this writer included).

Where do we begin? As you may already know from our previous report, StarCraft II was officially unveiled at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational (WWI) held in the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul, South Korea. The sequel will bring us back to the interplanetary battle for dominance raging between the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. The races have been given a makeover and were given new units and gameplay mechanics. Plus new abilities were given to the old units.

So what could be better than newer and bigger pawns? Well, a 3D-graphics engine to drive them, of course. StarCraft II will run on a custom 3D-graphics engine with great physics and the muscle to render several shiny units and armies simultaneously. Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment had this to say:

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.

StarCraft II will feature a single-player campaign (like the original) and online multiplayer via Battle.net. We assumed there will also be a LAN multiplayer mode. The campaign editor will also be making a comeback on the sequel as a full featured map editor.

According to the release, StarCraft II will be released for both Windows and Macintosh at the same time. There hasn’t been any announcement as to a possible ETA on the video game title though. The official website for the game (they sure work fast, don’t they?) is also up and running. You can check out the videos and screenshots in the earlier reports and here’s another video featuring some artwork. Enjoy!

Check out the artwork video right after the jump!

We couldn’t agree more with that tagline. As the announcement was just made, a rush of info about StarCraft II has invaded the QJ offices (and has successfully made three quarters of our staff geek out simultaneously, this writer included).

Where do we begin? As you may already know from our previous report, StarCraft II was officially unveiled at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational (WWI) held in the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul, South Korea. The sequel will bring us back to the interplanetary battle for dominance raging between the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. The races have been given a makeover and were given new units and gameplay mechanics. Plus new abilities were given to the old units.

So what could be better than newer and bigger pawns? Well, a 3D-graphics engine to drive them, of course. StarCraft II will run on a custom 3D-graphics engine with great physics and the muscle to render several shiny units and armies simultaneously. Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment had this to say:

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.

StarCraft II will feature a single-player campaign (like the original) and online multiplayer via Battle.net. We assumed there will also be a LAN multiplayer mode. The campaign editor will also be making a comeback on the sequel as a full featured map editor.

According to the release, StarCraft II will be released for both Windows and Macintosh at the same time. There hasn’t been any announcement as to a possible ETA on the video game title though. The official website for the game (they sure work fast, don’t they?) is also up and running. You can check out the videos and screenshots in the earlier reports and here’s another video featuring some artwork. Enjoy!