News

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm still a year away
Posted: 05.03.2011 03:54 by JonahFalcon Comments: 29
Gamers who have aced the Wings of Liberty campaign that comes with Starcraft II will have to wait a while longer for the next game, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Blizzard says that the expansion is a year away.

Responding to a fan query during an eSport panel, Director Dustin Browder's stated, "We are about a year away from completing the game. Making the game to fit an eSport makes it difficult to make interesting campaigns while keeping the game balanced."

It seems a long time for what is essentially a standalone expansion. What will Heart of the Swarm bring to the table, aside from a Zerg campaign? And how far off is Legacy of the Void, the Protoss campaign, then?
Source: G4TV

Comments

By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Mar 05, 2011
SirRoderick
Sometimes I think Blizzard is just messing with us....
By fltatk (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 05, 2011
fltatk
10 years to protoss?
By Kres (SI Elite) on Mar 05, 2011
Kres
That's "around" a year away...
By fltatk (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 05, 2011
fltatk
About a year away completing, but releasing? 2 years? And then the protoss campaign? 5-10 years:D Some people die, before they can get chance to play :D
By PowerJack (SI Elite) on Mar 05, 2011
PowerJack
As long as its as good as liberty.
By VHugoSama (SI Core) on Mar 05, 2011
VHugoSama
Blizzard sure likes to take their sheet time to create games one every decade, expect for WoW.
By Kres (SI Elite) on Mar 05, 2011
Kres
lol that's a bizzare thought fltatk. Not sure if they looked at it from that angle :p
By fltatk (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 05, 2011
fltatk
Maybe they don't have any good ideas for games, so they prolong what they have, and squeeze as much money from these as they can
By K3Spice (SI Core) on Mar 06, 2011
K3Spice
talk about some long waits....
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 06, 2011
herodotus
I'm afraid it's dropped off my 'wishlist". I didn't even finish the SP for "Wings of Liberty". Just too much the same as the original for my tastes. Sure you get the backfires when you mess with a game ("C&C 4", "Sup Com 2" - for many) but to basically leave it untouched after all his time, aside from a fresh coat of paint and true 3D... Nah, forget it.
By Ilyas93 (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 06, 2011
Ilyas93
Starcraft Wings of Liberty was made in 2010 and Starcraft Heart of the Swarm will come out in 2012 then i think about protoss maybe somewhere in 2015?
By PowerJack (SI Elite) on Mar 06, 2011
PowerJack
Probably 2014.
By Kres (SI Elite) on Mar 06, 2011
Kres
They want you to forget about it Herod, and then bring in a NEW FLASHY release of it. Would we buy it now? Course not.

But kudos to Blizzard as they take their time to release an almost finished product. Looks more like a product then most of other AAA releases.
By bollo (SI Newbie) on Mar 06, 2011
bollo
2 years for a polished expansion? I guess it's quite worth the time they are expending for bringing us a quality product...
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 06, 2011
herodotus
Bringing it out in 6 months wouldn't affect sales in the slightest (might even improve them). Only difference by the delay is that many who are playing it now will have a wife and a mortgage by then (and also how old will the grahic engine look then when iot barely improves on the sprite-based original?).
Do you think only 12 months will affect the sales for other franchises, including "Mass Effect", "Dragon Age", "CoD", "MoH" and "Total War" Well if you do, just look at "CoD: BO" compared with "CoD: MW 2" then tell me "CoD: MW 3" won't be a hit...with the legs to still outlast competitors (there are still millions of "CoD 4" players).
Blizzard are starting to look the proverbial dinosaur now as the whims of gamers change like the weather and games stay at No.1 about as long as a Lady Gaga hit.
Do me a favour!!!!
By bollo (SI Newbie) on Mar 06, 2011
bollo
herodotus...well IMHO and because I love strategy games, I will do a brief comparison and I don't want to enter in a great discussion....CoD is just a FPS, I mean what's the gameplay of those games: it's just to go ahead and kill somebody, save your a** or cover somebody's head. I mean, the truth behind those games is to bring some way to "relax" the "desire" to get somebody's life...so what's the easy part of those games: the history or campaign. Then the graphics is just about polishing the characters details and the 3d-engine. Nothing more. Then put that in a timeframe and you'll find that making those games is relatively easy in comparison to the strategy games and the whole strategy genre.
Taking about sales, you know, they are selling a lot because of their reputation of making HIGH quality games and because the games talk enough about the time they spend making a high quality product that, until these days, they keep supporting, like Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo series. While other companies drop the support to their games, Blizzard continues providing game support, game modes, game maps and stuff like that.
Just look what Blizzard is doing right now, enhancing Starcraft 2 with new game modes, maps, patches without asking you a penny like other companies do with their DLCs.

With these I'm just supporting what I've said before...If I have to wait 2 years for a great product I will do it....it's my opinion.
By lichlord (SI Core Veteran) on Mar 06, 2011
lichlord
their is still plenty of time to go with your lives at least im presuming your no elderly guy/women of 80 years old ;)

just wait a year might be long but think of all the other games that will get out during that time theirs plenty to go around with if you ask me
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 06, 2011
herodotus
I know it's comparing apples and oranges with FPS's and RTS's (I was referring to release scehdules, not the actual franchise...and I included quite a few), but lately they're kind of melding into tangerines...in terms of release schedules. Take "Total War", for example. That has become an almost yearly release event, as has "Assassin's Creed".
My main gripe is that with all the time Blizzard claim (and I do say "claim") to have spent in development, it's njust not there to be seen. I see nothing different in "SC II:WoL" on release, that I didn't see in videos of gameplay more than 2 years ago (except a toning down of the colour palette).
Sorry guysd, but I have a gripe with Blizzard on this one and feel they have not adopted to the gaming market as a whole. They focus more on the South-East Asian market where the big bucks are, and holding off two years is morea financial and marketting decision than a creative one.
I'm all for leaving enough time to finish it just the way a Dev team would like it to be, but this is ridiculous. Not even John Carmack took this long.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 06, 2011
herodotus
Even the Devs of "WoW: Cataclysm" admitted they had to call "time out", or they would have just gone on re-developing the worlds ad nauseum.
Someone has to come in and say:

"Down pencils! Pass your papers up to the front now!".

Noone seems to be doing that at Blizzard with "Starcraft" or "Diablo III".
By DAmicoThunder (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 06, 2011
DAmicoThunder
blizzard sure is taking their sweet time with this. its not like they have better things to do, do they?
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Mar 07, 2011
nocutius
I also think this is more a marketing decision than anything else. Others can make a complete game from the ground up in that same time. Blizzard only needs to give us the new story, the game itself is already done. So yea, definitely a marketing decision :(.
By lichlord (SI Core Veteran) on Mar 07, 2011
lichlord
lol if the game was completed they wouldn't delay it for a year why would they? won't effect the incomes much anyways and theyd have the debts of their personel to pay aswell no if it was completed it would be already in stores now
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Mar 07, 2011
nocutius
I don't mean they have completed the WHOLE thing LOOOL, I'm not that big of an idiot.
I meant the game as in 'The structure' = Starcraft II Wings Of Liberty. They already have the game engine, the units and their balance done from the first game = the hardest part.
They're pretty much working on giving us 'the story' = the missions themselves + the cutscenes.
That's what i meant by ''the game itself is already done'' and ''Blizzard only needs to give us the new story''.
By lichlord (SI Core Veteran) on Mar 08, 2011
lichlord
im sure they are gonna give a few new units innit perhaps too in skirmish you also couldn't get all the units of the terran as in the campaign or at least so ive heard my friend say
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 08, 2011
herodotus
And yet Relic can pull it off with "Dawn of War II" via two expansions, the last being a real blast and wholesome and content-laden patches. Nary a complaint to be found, once you've really gotten into the difference in SP gameplay that is "Retribution". "Dawn of War III" will probably be out before "Starcraft II" is complete, and that wouldn't be an issue if "SC II"was ground-breakingly different...or just plain diffferent. It's not, and it panders to the Asian market like noone's business. Don't be fooled - cash and marketting/media deals are playing a big role in this.
We are after all talking about Activision Blizzard, with majot shareholder being Vivendi, not the Blizzard of old.
By K3Spice (SI Core) on Mar 09, 2011
K3Spice
Relic has some really good ideas, but IMHO horrible balancing. I don't know about the full version of Dawn of War 2 Retribution, but I participated in the beta and found it unbalanced. Starcraft is really really well balanced on the other hand.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 09, 2011
herodotus
My first impresion of "Redtirbution" was the same as the last expansion of the original - rubbish, with a slant toward training for MP. The more I play though the more I find the small intricacies in it. I am actually inclined to play MP now, and never was before, but the SP alone is worth the price of admission as your decisions can quite often affecvt the outcome (in Hard Mode anyway).
Still, Relic if you can hear me:

"HOMEWORLD 3"!!!
By K3Spice (SI Core) on Mar 09, 2011
K3Spice
Homeworld is a great game....
By DAmicoThunder (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 17, 2011
DAmicoThunder
^^i concur