Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>There’ll be no more Overwatch 2 and World Of Warcraft in mainland China from January 23rd, 2023, Blizzard and NetEase have announced. Those are among the games that NetEase have handled publishing for within the country, but the two companies have failed to reach an agreement to extend their deal. To add insult to injury, NetEase’s president Simon Zhu has taken to LinkedIn to blame “a jerk” for the deal’s collapse.
]]>Strategy games is an enormous genre in PC gaming, with real-time, turn-based, 4X and tactics games all flying the same flag to stake their claim as the one true best strategy game. Our list of the best strategy games on PC covers the lot of them. We like to take a broad view here at RPS, and every game listed below is something we firmly believe that you could love and play today. You'll find 30-year-old classics nestled right up against recent favourites here, so whether you're to the genre or want to dig deep for some hidden gems, we've got you covered. Here are our 50 best strategy games for 2023.
]]>Less than a month after a load of Blizzard veterans announced several new studios, another group have announced a new studio of their own with plans to focus on real-time strategy. Frost Giant Studios are mostly former StarCraft II developers, and say they are "on a mission to bring real-time strategy games to a broad audience." They haven't specifically announced a game yet, but I'm certainly curious now Blizzard are stopping making new SC2 content.
]]>Ten years after the StarCraft II saga started and five after its final episode, Blizzard have announced they're winding down development. They still plan to tweak balance, but won't be making new paid content. Not putting a pillow over its spaceface, but shuffling it off to a spacehome. Their announcement also muttered about thinking about what's next for StarCraft, though I wouldn't take that as them announcing a sequel or anything just yet.
]]>Mike Morhaime, the co-founder and former CEO of Blizzard, has opened a new video games venture with two studios stacked full of fellow ex-Blizzard folks. Dreamhaven is the company name, under which sit two studios, Moonshot Games and Secret Door. Open their doors and you'll find folks including longtime StarCraft II game director Dustin Browder and original Hearthstone game director Eric Dodds. What are they working on? It's a secret, for now.
]]>This weekend, the ESL Pro Tour Masters Championship stops at Poland's Spodek arena for three days of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and StarCraft II matches in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2020. The arena can hold 11,500 spectators but while IEM Katowice sold out, it has no crowd. Last night, barely 15 hours before the event started, Polish authorities revoked its mass event license due to concerns about that there coronavirus. The matches are still going ahead, just with no spectators. ESL say they will refund IEM tickets but can't refund travel and accommodation costs.
]]>I wonder what the last "AI does a thing" headline will ever be. The one Google DeepMind are imagining, on their quest to create a genuine general intelligence, is something like "AI can do everything far better than you, nuh nuh". By their measure, their AI AlphaStar has climbed one more rung towards that goal by reaching Grandmaster level on StarCraft 2's European servers. That means it can't beat the very best, but it is "within the top 0.15% of the region's 90,000 players".
That's impressive, especially considering the greater limits on its perspective and actions per minute since the last time DeepMind sent it to do battle. This version can play all three races on any map, and is limited to a camera perspective in a similar way to a human player. It's a neat accomplishment, but I'm glad I got the chance to talk to the team and poke a caveat or two out of them.
]]>Spacebar: hammer out five drones. Page Up: slap down a refinery, place a bunker for protection. 2: Scout. Have a quick poke, pull back. Home: marines queued, rallied to the bunker. Spacebar: hammer out more drones. Never stop building drones. Lament your lack of pylons.
I wonder why I stopped playing Starcraft 2.
]]>Google's DeepMind AI division will likely end up making the next generation of military killbots, but before then, at least they'll provide new challenges for the esports crowd. In January, their "AlphaStar" StarCraft II agent trounced a crew of pro players ten to one. To make sure it wasn't a fluke, they've unleashed AlphaStar on the European public. According to this official blog post, AlphaStar is limited to Europe for now. StarCraft II players can opt for a chance to have their next 1v1 partner partner swapped out for an unfeeling machine that's less likely to insult your mother.
]]>After some delays, StarCraft: Mass Recall is complete and ready to play. It's a StarCraft 2 mod remake of the original StarCraft's campaign, expansion, demo and more. Better still, it's compatible with the free SC2 Starter Edition, effectively making it a free game. When I last covered this and other SC2 mods, only the first three campaigns were available, with the remaining missions needing work to keep up with StarCraft 2's mod-breaking patches. Below, a trailer comparing Blizzard's own StarCraft: Remastered to today's new Mass Recall. Personally, I prefer the latter.
]]>A team at Blizzard had been working on a first-person shooter set in the world of their StarCraft real-time strategy games, the rumour mill says, but it's recently been cancelled. One secret source told Kotaku that the game was a bit "like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe" though we may never see or know much more about it. Cancelling unannounced games is fairly standard for Blizzard if they don't think it's working out and, without confirming anything, the studio hint that's the case here. Kotaku's rumours say the StarCraft FPS gang aren't being laid off, rather put to work on Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 instead.
]]>Today in "computer beats human at thing computers could not previously beat humans at" news: Google Deepmind has bested StarCraft 2 pros at their own game. "AlphaStar" was unveiled on a livestream last night, in a show revolving around matches against top StarCraft pros Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz and Dario "TLO" Wünsch. All the games AlphaStar won were actually prerecorded, because GOOGLE ARE COWARDS COME FIGHT ME.
]]>StarCraft 2 remains an RTS esports favourite nine years from launch, but its mod scene never got the love or attention it deserved. Despite Blizzard's support, an in-game mod browser, powerful editor and even a short-lived premium mod program, a lot flew under the radar. While some mods and standalone missions remain popular in the StarCraft 2 Arcade, we're going to be diving deep into the biggest, best and newest single-player campaigns available. Whether you're an RTS veteran or don't know what a Zerg is, there's something for you here.
The icing on the space-cake is that all of this is completely free. StarCraft 2's first episode - Wings Of Liberty - has full mod support, and Blizzard made it free back in 2017. Every one of these campaigns can be played start to finish, fully intact and without a scratch on your wallet. Impressive, considering one is a full modernised remake of the original StarCraft and its expansion.
]]>We love a good multiplayer game here at RPS, because let's be honset, there's just something about doing battle with others over the internet that adds an extra bit of spice to the experience. You get the thrill of competition and friendship as you knock those scores upwards and combine your powers to outdo your enemies. To help you chase that feeling, we've curated this list of the very best multiplayer games on PC for your perusal.
]]>Back in 2016, Blizzard started hiring for a new first person game, by grabbing a couple of artists and moving Dustin Browder (the director of StarCraft 2) from his role on Heroes of the Storm to work as the director for the unannounced project. A new job post on Blizzard's career site shines more light on what is probably not Overwatch 2. The listing says that Blizzard are “looking for a talented and experienced Senior or Principal Designer” to develop weapons and abilities “in action or first-person shooter games.” They also want a hire that has a passion for playing and creating PvP game experiences. So strap in for StarCraft: Galaxy Royale. Or not. But we can all speculate wildly. And we will!
]]>Almost nine years after first announcing plans to sell some player-made custom maps in StarCraft II, Blizzard are finally following through. SC2's first two paid player-made maps will launch in the StarCraft Arcade with the next big update, with a share of sales going to the creators. Ark Star is a new turn-based tactical RPG in the world of StarCraft, while popular free mod Direct Strike will start offering an optional premium upgrade with cosmetics and extra modes. They'll be priced at $5 apiece, though Blizzard don't detail quite how big a share will go to the modders.
]]>This year's BlizzCon will run November 2-3, Blizzard have confirmed, and the first round of tickets will go on sale on May 9th. BlizzCon is their annual fan convention in California, with panels, tournaments, and events for all their big games. It always brings some big announcements too, setting up the year of Blizzard to come. For people who can't get there, Blizzard will also sell 'Virtual Tickets' to access livestreams of anything as well as the customary in-game goodies, and the main presentation livestreams tend to be to everyone for free.
]]>Blizzard have been celebrating the 20th anniversary of Starcraft all month long with a series of giveaways and perks for their endlessly cross-promoted stable of games. Today, they're finally giving away something of real value for Starcraft II players: One of their premium-priced playable characters for the RTS giant's still-growing cooperative mode.
You remember Fenix, right? Protoss hero, seemed friendly if a little death-prone. Now you can get him in his final, transforming future-bot form, free via Battle.net.
]]>If you've ever looked at your pet in Diablo III and thought "it's a shame that's not a miniature version of a high-tech flying battleship", then I've got some good news. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of StarCraft's release, Blizzard are giving out some free bits and bobs for StarCraft: Remastered, StarCraft II, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone. You play at least one of those games, right?
I find something undeniably icky about the phrase "cross-franchise celebration", despite having no real objections to what it entails. Maybe it's just that in whatever context it crops up, I can't help but recoil at the f-word.
]]>Blizzard have released a big free version of sci-fi real-time strategy game StarCraft II, offering one full singleplayer campaign along with all the multiplayer. This launched overnight, available now if you sign up for Battle.net and download its client doodad. The free version contains the campaign from 2010's Wings of Liberty--the one focused on humans--plus bot battles and online competitive, casual, and co-op action. That's a fair chunk of clicking for free. A big ol' SC2 patch has launched alongside this for all players too.
]]>If you, like me, bought the original StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty then skipped the sequels, good news: you can now get the Zergy one, Heart of the Swarm, for free. This little freebie comes ahead of Blizzard launching a big free version of SC2, including the Wings of Liberty campaign, next week. Yeah, I'll give this a go now for free. Stomp around as Kerrigan and make some meatfriends, sure, why not?
]]>A huge chunk of StarCraft II is going free later this month as a sort of big 'ol demo for the wider trilogy. From November 14th, everyone will be able to play the full Terran story campaign from the original Wings of Liberty, the competitive multiplayer including units from all three chapters, and -- with some limitations -- the cooperative mode too. If you dig it, you'll be able to buy the other bits of SC2 separately or in one big lump.
Oh, and people who own Wings of Liberty but skipped Heart of the Swarm will be able to get that Zergy instalment free - if they claim it in time.
]]>Hello. This is Spawn Point, a new not-quite-regular feature in which we take a genre, series or other facet of gaming culture, and try to convince you to give it a shot. It might be those hero shooters you’ve always wanted to get into, or that terrifying space game played by thousands of jerks. We’ll briefly explain the thing, followed by some ways for you to breach it.
First up, it’s... the real-time strategy.
]]>I had thought Blizzard were about done with big StarCraft II balance changes, or at least had decided which units should be in the game, but nope! This week they announced a load of changes for all factions in multiplayer, redesigning some units and outright removing one. Blizzard explain, "This time around our general focus is to address underused units and abilities while also trying to reduce sudden game ending moments." The changes are now live for public testing but won't launch properly until after the current season ends in November. They've got a lot to test and think about.
]]>When the robots come for us, bad sci-fi has taught me, it'll be teenage whizzes who save the world. In light of that, I believe that Blizzard and Google's DeepMind Lab are taking the audacious and treasonous step of pre-emptively toadying to our future robot overlords. They've teamed up to release a machine learning API and toolkit to use StarCraft II [official site] as a testbed for artificial intelligences. In short, they're trying to teach robots how to outthink and outmaneuver twitchy teenagers in war.
Congratulations, you've sold the human race out for... what? Smarter surveillance tools? Better self-driving cars? When those spy drones hunt us and your car transforms into a bipedal robot with you still inside, you won't find it so exciting.
]]>As Westlife once sang in their famous song about esports and their associated cash drives:
Tell me what makes an girl want to give you her credit card Smile when you're around and cry when you're apart If you know what makes a girl want to love you the way I do Esports, you gotta let me know so I can get over you.
While I wait for top scientists to develop an answer to our shared problem, Starcraft II is smooshing its esports carrot against fans' mouths/wallets in the form of a War Chest.
]]>We might not all have professional-grade StarCraft skills but soon we will all be able to have our games commentated on by the wonderful veteran commentary team of Nick 'Tasteless' Plott and Dan 'Artosis' Stemkoski. The pair have once again merged into the casting Archon of 'Tastosis' to record an announce voice pack for StarCraft II, which will launch this week with patch 3.14. I got into watching pro StarCraft through Tasteless on the Korean GSL competition, which Artosis has joined him in, so this sounds great. I hope Blizzard manage to capture the fun of two goofy pals goofing off.
]]>World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm are all to stop working on Windows XP and Windows Vista as Blizzard start phasing out support for ye olde operatinge systemes later this year. Other, older games will still work fine, but folks will need to upgrade to keep playing those newer ones. Windows XP is now fifteen years old and Vista ten, Microsoft have long since stopped updating either, and Blizzard say "the vast majority" of players have upgraded, so they're knocking old Windows out and smashing 'em in a big skip.
]]>Every Monday, we put Brendan in charge of a horde of early access games and force them to do battle. This week, the single-lane strategy of Art of War: Red Tides.
The evolutionary tree of the MOBA is a sprawling, mutated mess. While Warcraft got Dota, somewhere on some oozing far-off branch, Starcraft II got Desert Strike, a ‘tug of war’ custom game mode that pits commanders against one another on a single lane and automates nearly all troop movements and attacks. The only thing you do is control the flow of cash and decide what troops to send in the next wave. Imagine being in charge of the creep spawner in a normal MOBA and deciding that you don’t want these useless green lizards anymore, but some giant, furious mechs instead. You’ve got the basic idea. Art of War: Red Tides is the next slimey bud on that same evolutionary branch. It’s quite relaxing.
]]>From the forum threads full of arguments to the constant tweaking and occasional overhauls via patches – balance has long been one of the pillars of strategy games. It means fairness, a level playing field, and in competition it means that victory comes purely from player skill. But balance, and the quest to reach it, can easily become the enemy of surprise and of the joy that comes from succeeding against the odds.
Balance’s lofty position implies that nobody wants to be the underdog, that conquest is only satisfying if you have the exact same or at least equally effective advantages as your opponents. Sure, when actual money and trophies are involved, this sort of balance is necessary, but when you’re playing for fun? When you’re playing on your own? Give me the imbalanced every time.
]]>There’s a lot going on at Blizzcon 2016 – new Diablo classes, Hearthstone cards and long-rumoured Overwatch characters for a start. If Blizzard keeps making games, how large could Blizzcon become in the future? Could it grow too large for Anaheim, California, perhaps? At this rate it’s only a matter of time before it engulfs the whole of the US West Coast. But for now: more announcements.
Between all of the show’s marquee announcements, and all its eAthletes competing for big cash money prizes, there’s also been the usual bevvy of updates unveiled for StarCraft II, World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm. Time for a roundup!
]]>Good news for StarCraft II players who play several factions: you'll soon have a separate matchmaking rating for each one, meaning you can play/learn/try something different without tanking your ranking. Bad news for insecure SC2 players who try the "yeah but this is my first time ever playing Zerg ever in the world ever okay" excuse when losing: that won't fly any more.
Update 3.7, which hits the North American servers today, also boshes in psychic superspy Nova as a new paid commander in the Co-op Missions mode.
]]>The Korea e-Sports Association, KeSPA, has announced it will be discontinuing the world's longest-running esports league, the StarCraft ProLeague as of 18 October. Its closure comes after 14 seasons of competitive play across the Brood War and SC2 iterations of the franchise.
You can read the statement in full after the jump but I wanted to say that the golden years of competitive StarCraft were a bit before my time in PC Gaming and esports proper so what I know, I know from research and watching older VODs. With that in mind I'd really love to hear your experiences watching both ProLeague and with StarCraft in general - who you followed and why, standout moments, tiny heartbreaks - that sort of thing. Just leave a comment :)
]]>StarCraft II has got a whole lot cuter with the release of StarCrafts, a mod based on the long-running webcartoons by CarBot Animations. It gives everything a cartoony makeover, replacing all models and textures with squishy cartoon equivalents, complete with cutsey new animations. It's still StarCraft II, it just, y'know, looks delightful. Given that the StarCraft II Arcade is included with the game's demo, you don't even need to own any of 'em to play this. Go on, get cute.
]]>After twenty years, Blizzard plan to step away from the name Battle.net for their online platform and services. The Diablords and Warcrafteers today announced that they'll be "transitioning away" from the name Battle.net, which they've been using since the first Diablo way back in 1996. No, Blizzard now want to name elements boring things like Blizzard Streaming and Blizzard Voice. Ah, the end of an era. Another icon falls.
Look, let's be honest: names which are also domain names had become daggy by ooh we'll generously say 1999. But don't you see, Blizzard? A '90s revival is going on - for the first time in yonks, the name Battle.net currently sounds cool.
]]>I'm always interested in big balance changes to long-running competitive games, the rewriting of rules and reshaping of how matches go. I'm still waiting for football to follow Dota's lead and re-landscape and re-plant the pitch every few months - I'd love to see how the cars deal with that. Over in the world of StarCraft II [official site], Blizzard have announced details of a big rebalancing coming up in November. Why go into it this early? Because they want a good few months of feedback and tweaking. Terran mechmen, read on! Oh, and hey, SC2 is on sale now too.
]]>I think one of my favourite things about seeing a game jump genre is what it means for the ground-level stuff. An Ultralisk is never going to be scary, viewed from top-down, with a small army at your disposal. Leering down at you, with so many hit-points that the mission is more about distracting it, it becomes a very different matter.
Ever since World of Warcraft landed, Blizzard fans have longed, nay, demanded the chance to go on similar RPG adventures in the company's other beloved series - The Lost Vikings. Sadly, today is not that day. However, a few days ago one of the most exciting fan-projects to remind people that the Starcraft II arcade exists hit a pretty big milestone - Starcraft Universe: Beyond Koprulu went into open beta, with the full game due in a couple of weeks. While I'm sure we'll have some more on it then, not least because 'open beta' turned out to consist of a lot less content than I was expecting after playing through the three extremely long 'prologues', I went to take a peek.
]]>StarCraft Universe [official site], the free multiplayer RPG that has been built as a StarCraft II mod, is finally due to come out next month, after an eventful 5-year development. On top of that, the open beta is now live and can be played through the StarCraft II Arcade right now. You can even play with its free Starter Edition.
It's been a strange ride for this not-quite-MMO, including legal scares, name changes and a Kickstarter. What's all the fuss about? Come here and I'll tell you.
]]>Before broadband and the connected world of information, we found different ways to mix our social life and our games. LAN parties. Where our PCs had a big group hug and let us kill one another in peace. Michael Johnson remembers those times.
Growing up as a PC gamer in the 90's was a curious experience, the dawn of the internet age was upon us, but everything was still a little bit rough around the edges. To illustrate this - try playing the dial-up modem noise to a millennial and tell them that this sound used to accompany turning on the internet and they'll say something precocious like “You had to turn on the internet?” before laughing in your face and stealing all your pogs.
]]>As someone who writes a lot about esports it feels weird how strange and incomprehensible I still find StarCraft and StarCraft II [official site]. I can sort of follow them but the intricacies are lost on me so I am mainly covering this Legacy of the Void [official site] 3.3 patch about co-op missions and the like because the gif on the site makes it look like Abathur is taking to the stage to deliver a talk about sales figures or something.
Observe:
]]>Blizzard are jazzing up co-op missions in StarCraft II [official site], adding optional 'mutators' to change missions in strange and difficult ways along with a rotating lineup of 'weekly mutations'. Each week, expect new preset challenges on a certain missions, such as the combination of infested hordes spawning in waves, infested monsters bursting out of corpses, and a deep dark fog of war for the Oblivion Express co-op mission. Blizzard are also boshing in a 'mastery' system for co-op, which will let max-level commanders earn more boosts to their commander's powers.
]]>StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops [official site] is the three-part single-player standalone StarCraft II mission pack that was announced at BlizzCon last year. Back then, a vague "Spring 2016" release date was attached to the first installment, however Blizzard have now confirmed March 29 as launch day for those living Stateside, and March 30 for Europe.
]]>StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [official site] is the second expansion for StarCraft II, this time focused on mystical, mouthless, paladin-like alien race the Protoss. I'm not much of a one for StarCraft II multiplayer, but I wanted to see the singleplayer tale through to its conclusion and, heck, I do miss traditional real-time-strategy, so I took a belated look at the campaign mode.
When your entire cast consists of people who don't have mouths or pupils, you need to do your damnedest to ensure their words carry the emotion their faces cannot. Legacy of the Void does not do that. In fact, it does the exact opposite of that.
]]>StarCraft II: Legacy Of The Void [official site] is the third and final installment of the StarCraft II trilogy and it's out this coming week - November 10, to be exact. Naturally, you might've assumed this would mark the end of StarCraft for the time being, that after this one we'd have to wait a while for the next, if there was to be another one at all. Right? Wrong: Blizzard have announced a three-part mission pack named Nova Covert Ops that'll launch in Spring 2016 to keep all you StarCraftians going. We've got the Legacy Of The Void launch trailer AND the Nova Covert Ops trailer below to suit your needs.
]]>What's the worst thing in between you and interplanetary domination in StarCraft 2? It's not the endless hordes of revolting Zerg. It's not the condescending space-worthiness of the Protoss, or the wannabee space cowboy antics of the Terrans. It's the menus.
Luckily, that's all gonna change when patch 3.0 lands.
]]>With StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [official site] due to launch on November 10th, Blizzard are putting the finishing touches to their trilogy-capping RTS expansion and the Protoss themselves, well, they're on the eve of war they're wondering if it's all worth it. A new animatic trailer has five minutes of debate about destiny and and honour high prices, leading into the expansion's grand invasion.
(Spoiler: they think it's totally worth going to war, which is perhaps a relief otherwise Blizzard would have to scrap the game and this video would be the end to SC2.)
]]>Lawks a lummy, Blizzard cinematics sure do go in for a bit of spectacle! The Protoss and Zerg are throwing down in some awfully fancy CG for the opening cinematic to StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [official site], which Blizzard shared over the weekend alongside announcing plans to launch the RTS expansion pack on November 10th. Here, come check out this cool Archon:
]]>The final expansion for StarCraft II, Legacy Of The Void [official site], is expected to appear before the end of 2015. But in the meantime, those who pre-order the game (don't pre-order - Ed) can gain immediate access to the beta for prologue missions, Whispers Of Oblivion. We sent Rob Zacny in to take a look at both that short campaign, and the multiplayer for the expansion.
Perhaps it was unfair to expect too much from Whispers Of Oblivion. It's a Legacy Of The Void pre-order bonus that will be free for everyone when the game launches later this year. It's the StarCraft equivalent of a Happy Meal toy. I might have enjoyed it more, except that I started replaying the Wings of Liberty campaign, and thinking about all the places StarCraft 2 has gone — and hasn't gone — in the last five years.
]]>'Legacy Of the Void', 'Whispers Of Oblivion'. Man, whoever's in charge of names at Blizzard needs to go and lie on the grass in the sunshine for a while, otherwise we're going to end up with 'Warcraft IV: I Just Feel So... Empty, Y'know?' The aforementioned Mutterings Of Unconsciousness is the name given to a 'prologue' for upcoming Starcraft II [official site] expansion Inheritance Of Nothingness, which is now available for 'free' to anyone who pre-orders the add-on.
]]>Those po-faced Protoss will be romping all over the place in StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [official site], the third part of Blizzard's drawn-out RTS sequel, but a little taster's coming sooner. Blizzard have announced Whispers of Oblivion, a Set of Three single-player Missions of Prologue coming free to all People of the Earth before the Release of the Game. Come watch the Trailer of the Announcement.
]]>I am, and always will be, ambivalent about StarCraft 2 [official site]. It is a game I can barely play at the best of times, where my greatest exertions will raise me to the barest level of competence. It is the eSport I fell in love with, the competitive game I still get the most excited about during long, lazy weekends at home. It is a game I admire, but will never master.
Yet hope springs eternal. Maybe with Legacy of the Void, StarCraft 2 can finally become what I want it to be. Maybe this time it can be everything.
]]>Sound the klaxon - I keep mine next to the bed - the StarCraft s2: Legacy of the Void [official site] beta is go.
You'll know whether you have access to the beta by trying to log in to the beta, then if it doesn't work then you probably don't. Try watching a few hours of Netflix to pass the time instead.
]]>Still no news on an official new Warcraft game - and I'd be fairly surprised if that changed before the end of this decade, to be honest - but news of Warcraft III remade in Starcraft II feels like a long time coming. It's partly down to Blizzard's recent release of the Warcraft III assets to the community, but mostly down to pure gumption on the mod team's part.
]]>Blizzard has laid out plans to fiddle with the StarCraft 2 ladders, including changing the new player start point to make the experience less punishing.
The alterations come in three flavours - "mild", "MORE DRASTIC PERHAPS" and "Legacy of the Void".
]]>Warcraft III's mod scene is grossly underrated, I've muttered into many a pint glass. Yes, yes, we know it was where MOBAs and tower defense games really took off, but so many more inventive and interesting and weird games bounced around, types of game I haven't seen since. I always thought this was helped a lot by WC3 having a huge range of units and wildlife and odd art assets folks could repurpose, making mods about more than soldiers. Delightfully, loads of those WC3 bits are now coming to StarCraft II's editor, Blizzard have announced. The main Hero units are getting modern makeovers too.
]]>Blizzard has announced the roster of StarCraft 2 tournament ladder maps for 2015 season 1. It's only the 1v1 maps at the moment – team maps are being announced "soon" – but below is the list of what you can pick from in the first season of the new year.
]]>Well gosh, isn't it around time? Blizzard have finally revealed and officially begun to speak about the third instalment of StarCraft II's trilogy, Legacy of the Void, at Blizzcon this weekend. It's focused on those enigmatic space-elves the Protoss for its singleplayer along with the usual spread of balance update and unit additions for multiplayer. The campaign is about your man in the middle there, Artanis, as he forms an army to take back his homeworld and coincidentally runs into the universe-ending machinations of the series' big bad. Meanwhile the changes to the online game hope to bring the foundation of modern e-sports back to some of its former glory. Get the deets below.
]]>This is bold. The part I already knew: you can now play any of StarCraft 2's three races in multiplayer for free. The part I didn't expect: you can also play any of the user-created custom maps and modes available in StarCraft Arcade for free, too. That's a huge amount of free game, and a huge boon for the mod community.
]]>Once upon a Thursday dreary, I was browsing weak and weary, Searching many a long and angry reddit rant or forum boast, While I shuddered, nearly weeping, suddenly there came a tweeting, As of some one gently linking, linking to Team Liquid's post.
I am posting Snute's Click Game not because I expect everyone who reads this to play it but because I was startled to discover it earlier today. It's a training tool, for Starcraft 2 players, and it involves clicking on tiny little dots as quickly as possible. I've since learned that it's not the only trainer of its type, which makes sense. This is one of the tools for a complete Starcraft gym and trying it has helped my old man's brain better understand how e-sports folk break a game down into discrete skills and tasks. You will find my score below.
]]>You can tell a lot about a person by watching what they install on a fresh operating system. It's the IT Rorschach test. For me it goes Chrome, Steam, drivers, a twitter client, then whatever I need as I go along*. I suspect Blizzard has just added an extra step in that process for a lot of PC owners: they've just opened up the beta to a new launcher for all their recent games. Battle.net is now on the desktop.
]]>It probably won't come as any shock to learn that none of the current RPS team have gone the distance in StarCraft II's incomparable multiplayer, but I can at least tell you what I made of the expansive singleplayer campaign in its first expansion, Heart of the Swarm. No throwaway side-dish, this is a vast, bubbling, consciously epic, setpiece-filled cauldron of scifi RTS-RPG. This time around, the stars are hiveminded alien nasties the Zerg and their sometime ruler Sarah Kerrigan, seeking a comeback and revenge after the events of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Scuttle this way and I'll tell you more.
]]>The latest trailer for Blizzard's StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm focuses on eSports and multiplayer. eSports are like regular sports, except it's playing videogames in a chair, and not sports. Multiplayer is when other people spoil your game for you.
]]>Be you noob or ninja, Starcraft's Heart Of The Swarm expansion wishes to cater for you. Yes, everyone is welcome at the table of extra-terrestrial strategy. In their latest seven minute preview, which you can watch below, Blizzard community manager "Cloaken" explains a bit about this approach, as well as announcing "unranked play", which should allow veterans to kick back and mess about without threatening those precious ladder rankings.
]]>That's StarCraft II, mind you. Otherwise, I think that'd be a dequel, and I'm not sure anyone actually wants one of those. But yes, WarCraft: A New Dawn is picking up the severed orc hand of maximum strategy Blizzard dropped after WoW exploded. As of now, it's very much a work-in-progress, but the end goal is to craftily craft StarCraft into "a breathtaking, lore-abiding storyline spanning several emotionally-gripping campaigns containing new units, new heroes, and new features as well as a fully fledged melee mode." Lofty goals, huh? Maybe even too lofty. The team's released their first video, though, so you can judge for yourself.
]]>This week Jeb Boone looks at the story of Flash versus Grubby, and the Electronic Sports League (ESL) Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament in Singapore.
]]>Well, that didn't take long. Hackers sneaked past Blizzard's hyper-sophisticated security system - presumably by cinematically lowering themselves from a cyber-ceiling to avoid all the e-lasers - and people weren't too terribly happy about that. Unsurprisingly, a couple of them decided to sue. Unsurprisingly-er, Blizzard's replied not by groveling and begging for heartfelt forgiveness, but instead by whipping out its fightin' words pistols and shooting down the whole thing.
]]>Our e-sports correspondent is Jeb Boone.
The e-sports community is in the midst of a mad scramble to organize tournaments. There are such a large number of events this month it’s enough to overwhelm even the most dedicated fans.
While many prominent members of the community argue over tournament oversaturation and eschatological speculations, this November is one of the most important months for the industry in recent memory. And it's been an important time for that e-sports staple, Starcraft II.
]]>Oh, that was such a dick move of me, wasn't it? To do a ... and everything to make you read the story? It's not even because I'm chasing hits. Hits, shmits - it's just that I've got a tiresome headcold and am feeling highly belligerent as a result.
I'll make up for this awful wasting of your time by definitely not posting the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm release date underneath the 'Read the rest of this entry' jump.
]]>Since the dawn of time, people haven't been the greatest communicators. Unable to bridge both geographical and interpersonal gaps, we've come to despise one another on pretenses that are flimsy at best. But maybe, all this time, we really just needed a universal language - a go-between that made sense of our Picaso collage of quirks and differences. What I'm saying is, maybe we needed non-region-locked StarCraft II servers. And soon - finally, mercifully, gosh, jeez, ugh - we'll be getting them.
]]>Our e-sports correspondent is Jeb Boone.
A dearth of tournaments outside of Asia has left western e-sports of every stripe wallowing in controversy. The StarCraft 2 community continues to cannibalize itself with vitriol and a player shake up has League of Legends fans up in arms. A few glimmers of hope have steered StarCraft fans in a more positive direction and, with any luck, an OSL finals will remind many of the reasons why a hobby became an infatuation that just wouldn't quit.
]]>Sometimes, I view my mundane day-to-day tasks as a series of experience-endowing quests. Go the grocery store. 300 XP! Obtain vegetables (x10). 400 XP! Defeat the checkout line - which is, in fact, a hideously undulating centipede monster - and escape the store as it collapses into an all-consuming void of infinite nothingness. 7 XP! Is it any wonder that I see things that way, though? I mean, everything has a leveling system these days. Even when they don't really make a whole lot of sense. Case in point: StarCraft II.
]]>Our e-sports correspondent is EFSI World's Jeb Boone. This week he looks at the worries around Starcraft 2, and the impact League Of Legends is having on the pro community.
On Wednesday, October 17th, the Fates seemed to be conspiring to kill e-sports. Like their Roman counterparts, the e-sports Parcae spin, measure and cut the USB cord of life, deciding what will live, and who will disband. On that day, beloved StarCraft 2 team SlayerS disbanded in a fury of controversy and vitriol, and with concerns about Heart Of The Swarm, the future of e-sports as a whole. Here's what happened.
]]>RPS chum Rich Stanton has been contemplating the loss of a classic Terran unit over in the Heart Of The Swarm beta. Here are his thoughts on the matter.
Let's not beat around the bush: I love building Marines. Starcraft II may as well be called 'Marines' for me, because making lots of these little guys and then sending them off to destroy alien forces is pretty much all I've done for the past two years. Terran scrubs represent! Starcraft II rather encourages this, I think, because there isn't really a better option for the Terran army than Marines. Sure, the odd fancy-pants will try Hellion openings, and gods among men like Thorzain can dominate with all-mech strategies – but for a bog standard Terran like me? Marines mate. A few Marauders, couple of Medivacs, if it's Zerg or Terran then add a few Siege Tanks. It is often said that the Terran army in Wings of Liberty has more options than any other, which may be true, but things begin and end with the Marine.
]]>Back in June Blizzard showed off the beta stages of their Starcraft II community forum, The Arcade, and the latest patch makes it official. In case you missed the fuss over this, it's a pretty major event for the SC2 community because it provides a new platform for sharing content created in the game's hefty editor. Custom games will now be easier to track, even before they are released (assuming the author updates and so forth) and it should make it easier for folks to promote their creations to the overall community. As closed a system as Blizzard games are right now, this seems like a large and positive step in the direct of acknowledging that the PC is just as much about making stuff as it is about playing stuff.
]]>I, like many of the highly evolved, vaguely human terminal cyborgs that we otherwise refer to as "Internet users," perhaps somewhat unwisely use the same few passwords for, well, a lot of things. But damn it, I crafted those passwords. I didn't use wars or stars, but they're mine - forged through years of slight tweaks and realizations that my birthday and number sequences I'd learned in pre-school, in fact, presented sort of crackable codes. So I really wish videogame companies would stop losing track of them. But alas, it keeps happening. The most recent victim? Blizzard. Fortunately, it sounds like our most important info (credit card, address, real name, etc) is still safe and sound, but you'll probably want to toss your password masterworks and start anew all the same. Same with mobile Authenticators - which Blizzard notes "could potentially" be compromised. Ruh-roh.
]]>I'm about as much use as toenails on a strawberry in terms of discussing StarCraft II's popular, ladder-based multiplayer, so I'm sure you'll be hanging upon the golden wisdom of my every word as I bring you news that the UK SC2 championships are being held at BAFTA this weekend. To be honest I mostly clicked through because it said 'free tickets' and even though I now earn enough to have three square meals a week the f-word brings me running every time.
]]>Details up on Battlenet tell of the beta for patch 1.5 for Starcraft II, and it's got a couple of important things in there. The most important of these is The Arcade, which is a way to find "custom games", aka mods, that have been created and posted by the Starcraft community. Blizzard explain: "When you log into the beta, you’ll find the Arcade has games available to play, because the industrious StarCraft II custom gaming community has already been hard at work crafting, refining, and posting their creations." The patch also contains some editor refinements, to make that mod crafting a little easier.
]]>E-sports are complicated - and not just because they involve phrases like "300 actions per minute." Planet Earth, you see, is broken up into these colossal rocks - oft-believed to be kept afloat by a colorful assortment of giant sea turtles - called continents. And within these continents are countries, states, cities, and provinces, each with their own rich cultures and unique perspectives. Which is terrible, because that makes it nearly impossible to answer the most important question of all: Who's best at StarCraft? Happily, Blizzard's proposed a solution.
]]>Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World's Samuel Lingle
It’s been a month since the last e-sports update, but fear not. They’re returning with weekly regularity. In theory.
Today I’m going to recap most of the bigger events of the past month or so, considering there was a lot of exciting stuff you guys may have missed. It’s StarCraft heavy by necessity, as the majority of e-sport events these days feature Blizzard’s popular RTS.
]]>The best of the best of the e-sports types are flexing their brain-muscles and finger-glands to fight it out at the Intel Extreme Masters, right now. You can watch it streamed over here. Counter-Strikes are being struck, League Of Legends are being made legendary, and Starcraft IIs are being uhm stricken? Anyway, $55,000 is at stake.
]]>If you are Pvt. Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence, then StarCraft Master is Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, shouting GG sarcastically into your face to prepare for the horrors of Vietnam StarCraft II multiplayer. Masters is a mod that's just gone live on Battle.net with 30 challenges carefully curated to mimic strategies you'll use when you click that terrifying button that takes you online. You may not like it, but the more you hate it the more you will learn micro-mangement skills and build queues. Do you Larvae understand?
Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World's Samuel Lingle.
E-sports in 2012 got going quickly as a number of January events opened the year. The Global StarCraft 2 League (GSL) kicked off their new season. The fighting game community knocked off APEX 2012, featuring Super Smash Bros and various other titles. The DotA 2 beta continues to chug along with various tournaments and leagues. The biggest of the past week, though, was the StarCraft 2 tournament at HomeStory Cup IV. Coverage and results right here.
]]>Last week we took a look back at Major League Gaming Providence, the final event for North America’s largest e-sports circuit. This time, we’ll look at last week’s big event: Dreamhack Winter 2011. See ESFI World’s on-site coverage of the event here.
]]>WITCHCRAFT, TRICKERY, DEVILRY, PERVERSION. A man, if he truly deserves that title, has sullied the noble art of waiting a long time for a new videogame. He has jumped the gun in the most devious possible way. He has... no, I can barely stand to repeat it.
But I must. His crime must be known. He has recreated the units from the impending StarCraft II expandosequel Heart of the Swarm, before it has even been released, and packaged them into a four-map mod for the current version of Wings of Liberty. I... I don't know what to say. He might as well have wiped Blizzard's hard drives and then taken the very bread from their mouths, such is the heinousness of this thought-crime and the surely catastrophic consequences of making something that looks and plays a bit like something in future might play.
]]>It seems like only last week that I found myself watching men playing Countertstrike and wondering how they came to be so good at man-shooting and here I am today watching two people playing Starcraft 2, which makes me realise how bad I am at mouse-clicking. These people though? Very good at mouse-clicking. They're playing in the Grand Final of Blizzcon's Starcraft 2 tournament and the winner scoops $50,000, which is probably half of America's forecast GDP for 2012. I don't follow the competitive Starcraft community, but I believe the two fellows playing have what the kids call 'beef' with one another. Enjoy
]]>Sometimes games brood, sitting in a corner and calculating their every internal component with a die that has unlimited sides. That can be agreeable, but it's much more agreeable when a new game approaches wearing a jester's hat and jigging merrily into view. Such is the case with Blizzard DOTA, the trailer for which has all the appearance of a wonderful parody. But this is reality and you will indeed be able to play a DOTA-styled game, pitching Blizzard characters against each other, with no regard for lore or legacy. It is to be an officially released Starcraft 2 mod, although you won't even need to buy Starcraft 2 to play it.
]]>There was something else that Blizzard were talking about at Blizzcon this weekend, which was the next instalment of Starcraft II. The beta for Heart Of The Swarm is apparently "months" away, so it looks like we can expect the next game before the end of next year. Anyway, the trailer (below) shows a bunch of CG and in-game scenes, basically telling the story of Kerrigan's lust for revenge, as well as teasing a bunch of the stuff that's going to happen (and the units that are going to appear) in the new campaign.
]]>One of Starcraft II's big boasts was how awesome its editor was going to be for making your own games and such. We're just starting to see the fruits of that. One group of modders took Blizzard up on the challenge and got on with creating a Starcraft MMO. After some initial legal wobbles, the mod is now approved by Blizzard, and it's PvP mode is now undergoing a beta test. You can find some more details here, and I've posted the developer diary video for it below.
]]>If you’d asked me three days ago, “how many bars in America do you think screen live games of Starcraft II?”, I would have said “none of them”. Then the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Starcraft II matches being shown in sports bars “across the country”. That makes it sound bigger than it is, like some sort of craze sweeping the nation. In reality, as the article later makes clear, there are “more than a dozen” bars screening live games. More than a dozen probably means thirteen but it’s still a lot more than “none of them”. I don’t think this sort of thing happens on these British Isles yet but it did make me think about the different ways we enjoy this grand old hobby.
]]>In the Great Battle Of The DOTAs, Eurogamer reports that Blizzard's own version, made as a mod for Starcraft 2, won't be with us until 2012 now. Because they scrapped the version now assumed to release near Heart of the Swarm, and started over. The version shown at last year's BlizzCon is no more. The reboot will apparently aim to make the game more accessible to newcomers, which it's hard to believe isn't a reaction to Valve's DOTA 2. There are lots more details in the EG story. So, two DOTAs due to arrive next year, from two of the most powerful developers in the world. Now, if only I liked DOTA games.
]]>Blizzard have removed the Starcraft II demo from Battle.net, to replace it with a "Starter Edition" - a move which echoes World Of Warcraft's free 20-level trial. The Starcraft II starter edition allows you try out a bunch of the single player game, and also the Terrans in custom games and single-player vs AI games. More details below.
]]>Major League Gaming's latest pro-gaming tournament kicked off in Anaheim earlier today, and will be running all weekend. If you're in Southern California, you should get yourself down to the Anaheim Convention Centre to see some of the world's finest StarCraft II players go head to head. If you're not local, you can watch the face-offs as they happen with the livestream below.
]]>Following last week's leaked cinematic teaser we now have some actual footage of Starcraft II's second episode in action, and you can check that out below. We're expecting the game itself to turn up in the first half of next year, and it could be a rather different hero-focused experience, if the previews are anything to go by. Which I guess they must be, since they're about the game and all.
It's no Men Of War.
]]>Looks like we were too sleepy to pick up on the leaked Starcraft II: Heart Of The Swarm teaser last week, but I've posted it below, belatedly. We were also rudely not invited to go and play it WHICH IS FINE, BECAUSE STARCRAFT IS RUBBISH ANYWAY AND WE WERE BUSY TALKING TO GIRLS AND OTHER COOL, CREDIBLE STUFF OKAY.
Eurogamer have a preview though, which is packed full of details, and delivers this conclusion: "Heart of the Swarm is still evolution rather than revolution, of course, but it's a crucial step for StarCraft II as a whole. That's because, while it may be the modern king of the competitive RTS, its rank as a single-player experience is less clear. By letting you talk to the monsters, and control them as the biggest monster of all, Heart of the Swarm doesn't just promise change - it gives the silent majority their very own god of war." Gosh!
]]>Reader and filmmaker Luke Pierson has made a short documentary feature about competitive Starcraft 2, and I've posted it below for you to take a look at. The film is a freshman year documentary project for the film school at Columbia College Chicago, and was shot at (presumably the Starcraft 2 club of) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Pierson explains: "I really wanted to create something that would make it easier for competitive starcraft players to explain to their friends and family (gaming and otherwise) what it's all about." And he's not done a bad job.
Any other gamer-filmmakers out there?
]]>One of these days, we must take a long, hard look at ourselves. And also at the StarCraft II modding scene, to see how well it's living up to the promise that the modkit could turn the game to whole new genres.
Blizzard themselves have now made good on that promise, releasing the final, public versions of three long-promised cheeky nods to other games...
]]>Hello! Back in the 21st century actual video gaming is happening, and it's taking a spin this weekend with the Major League Gaming circuit, which commences play in just over an hour. This is a big old pro-gaming tournament happening right now in Dallas, with Starcraft 2 being the big draw for PC types. More information and streams of the events are embedded below, for your viewing pleasure.
]]>Grandmaster leagues, faster Battlecruisers, Bunkers that take longer to build and tweaked Infestors are just some of the many changes coming in the 1.3 patch for StarCraft 2, now live on the game's test servers (thanks, Bigdownload!). The Grandmaster league (currently only available for 1v1 matches) is more than a little demanding, accepting as it does the top 200 players in each region, making it more exclusive than becoming, say, a real-life judge. Full patch notes after the jump.
]]>Starcraft II's competitive side is really beginning to catch fire, with the North American Star League announcing that their first season will have $100,000 of prize money available. Three seasons have reportedly secured funding, with the last one bringing in $200,000 in prizes. That first season is taking place from April 5th for thirteen weeks. It'll be viewable five nights a week at 5pm PST, culminating in 16-man finals.
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