The StarCraft Legacy

 

 

From humble brick to mighty bridge, in the 15 years the StarCraft brand has been around it has achieved what most games can only dream of attaining. Laying the foundation for a strong RTS-backed competitive scene, the massively celebrated title has forged an unwavering partnership between traditional games and the eSports community. Taking cue for WarCraft 2 before it, it has managed to stay relevant as both a single player and multiplayer game for over a decade and a half. Celebrating its 15 years in existence this year, let’s take a trip down memory lane to retrace the steps that Blizzard took with our beloved space-traversing RTS and see how and why it has managed to become the game it is today.

 

 

Starting out in 1998 and running off a modified WarCraft 2 engine, Blizzard unleashed a different kind of RTS experience – one that appeared drastically different from our familiar pool of orcs, trolls, elves and dwarfs control units. Positioning itself as a sci-fi fantasy RTS, it too differentiated itself from other modern military strategy games such as Command and Conquer. Winning the world over with its cheesy tough-guy dialog, captivating plotlines, masterfully rendered cut scenes sugarcoated with a well robust multiplayer experience, the best selling PC game of 1998 earned numerous awards and – in November that same year, its very own expansion, StarCraft: Brood War.

 

 

Picking off where its predecessor left off—with the Overmind destroyed and Kerrigan out for blood. The highly iconic Queen of Blades, one of the few champions of feministic strength as portrayed in video games at that time, went on to claim the universe for herself. Joined by other an equally outstanding cast of characters such as Jim Raynor, Arcturus Mengsk and Zeratul, the game flourished as an endearing single player classic that would, for years to come, withstand the test of time.

 

However the StarCraft legacy has only half been realized; revolutionizing the RTS “chessboard” was merely the tip of the iceberg, for what StarCraft did for Blizzard’s online gaming service, Battle.net, was perhaps definitively more significant.

 

 

First off the drawing board as a support application for Diablo, Battle.net emerged as the go-to service for everything StarCraft multiplayer. In what was a combination of fluid and balanced gameplay mechanics, iconic unit archetypes such as the Hydralisk, Zealot, and Siege tank, topped with state of the art matchmaking services, the number of Battle.net users doubled and in places like South Korea. By 2004, the game had sold over 9.5 million copies, nearly half of which in South Korea and Battle.net numbers soared to close to a million.

 

Then in 2001, the Olympics of gaming, the World Cyber Games (WCG) took the Brood War competitive scene under its wing. Held in none other than South Korea, the unofficial capital of StarCraft, this event ushered in a great era of eSporting dominance. Patenting in the process, several of the industry’s favorite recurring terms such as Zerg Rush or the famous “GEE GEEE!” (GG).

 

 

 

In 2007, with the 9 year old title looking a little dated alongside its peers, Blizzard moved in to announce the sequel to the award winning game. This move, unsurprisingly, was met with rousing cheers and massive anticipation; this despite the latter’s admission that the sequel will be split into three separate installments. Released in 2010, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty (the Terran-centric campaign) became the fastest selling strategy game of all time.

 

Garnering five-star receptions from across multiple review sites such as Game Informer and Joystiq, it wasn’t long before the famed sequel made it into the hearts of competitive gamers as well. Winning over the Korean behemoths was perhaps a harder feat than it should have been given the familiarity and pervasiveness of the old StarCraft within their culture—but Blizzard had their ways. And not before long, they had MLG, GOMTV and other pro-gaming platforms running competitions the acclaimed strategy game.

 

Fast forward three years later and the StarCraft brand, 15 years young and going strong, witnessed the birth of the second iteration of its sequel, Heart of the Swarm. Introducing new units such as the Viper (a la Defiler for Zerg) and Hellbat (a la Firebat for Terran), it was both an homage to vanilla StarCraft and a game changer in terms of PvP dynamics. 

 

 

With the 15^th anniversary having recently elapsed, Blizzard ran a Twitter campaign encouraging sharing of your fondest StarCraft memory at #SC15. While the official deference may have ended, ours still persist. To one of the most enduring RTS franchises out there, leave us your congratulatory messages in the comments section below!