Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty is shaping up to be EPIC

Justin Robinson travels to Blizzard HQ to get the scoop on the game everyone's waiting for: Starcraft 2!

In the world of PC gaming, few strategy titles stir up as much excitement as Starcraft II. As the only upcoming PC exclusive in the foreseeable future, this is a game that has reinvigorated the argument for that custom-modded rig you've rightly clung to, and provides yet another reason to stay far away from the sterile land of consoles. But in taking on this role as saviour of PC gaming, have Blizzard stretched their resources and talent too far? Can they really revitalise and rework a genre for which they're already so well known? Well, we went straight to their HQ to find out.

There are so many considerations to keep track of when creating a sequel that we'd literally run out of room here if addressed them all, but it goes without saying that the original Starcraft is getting so long in the tooth that it's chewing on its own brain. While it's still played competitively, it's been the same for over a decade, and it's time for a shake-up. It's time to do things a little beta.

World's hardest balancing act
The Starcraft II beta has been one of the most important milestones in the game's development cycle, providing the devs not only with a way of playtesting their engine on thousands of varied computers, but also giving them an insight into both unit and player behaviours. We spoke with Dustin Browder, Lead Designer, and he explained the excitement that the beta generates. "We've been able to deal with issues like Zerg v Zerg being so stale", he said, "we nerfed the heck outta the Zerg - not because they were so powerful, but because ZvZ was so boring!"

Getting the balance right is a mammoth task; even the smallest change to a unit can have a serious knock-on effect somewhere down the track. Dustin highlights the Terran Raven as a great example: "Right before beta it was insanely powerful. We owned everyone with it! Everyone was like 'AAH THE RAVENS'. What I'd love to do with that one is bring it back down off the fusion core and make the balance adjustments, so we see it used a lot more." It's not only balancing the units that are included in the game that poses such a headache - even deciding which units to include is an arduous task.

"The Lurker is certainly a unit that we love, but it conflicts against a lot that is in the game", Dustin solemnly muses. "What we ended up doing is taking the Lurker and pushing him to tier three - and he could almost survive, but at that level there's plenty of detection." The Lurker was removed from the game, since it simply didn't fit into the world any longer. When prodded about other units that had been considered for removal, Dustin gleefully smirks, "The Archon has been on my chopping block for months." As if the job wasn't hard enough to begin with, different regions in the world have incredibly separate play styles that confuse things further. "For Korea, we need to nerf the Zerg in the worst way. In Europe and America, we need to buff them IN THE WORST WAY."

Thankfully there is a clear and easily identifiable benefit of going to all the hassle of tweaking units and balance settings for the game, which results in a meaner and leaner game. "Right now, our racial matchups are within 1% win/loss", explains Dustin. This is a great sign that shows just how close the game is getting to a final, ship-ready and fully balanced state.