Just minutes ago, at the Worldwide Invitational in Seoul South Korea, Blizzard Entertainment announced Starcraft 2. SC2 is going to be an RTS, with some of the old units using new abilities, as well as newly created units.
- Protoss can create force fields anywhere, and phase fields that teleport units to anywhere on the battlefield.
- Zerglings can mutate into incredibly powerful, moving bombs.
- New Protoss unit: Immortals; They have a special shield that activates when being powerfully attacked.
- New Protoss unit: Stalker; Is a quadroped type creature that has a blink ability.
- New Terran unit: Reapers; They can hop across uneven terrain using jump packs, and seem to be the counter to Immortals, with two pistols that don't activate the Immortal's shield.
- New Protoss unit: Colossus; Has dual laser weapons and very long legs, allowing them to traverse difficult terrain.
- New Protoss unit: Phoenix; Can charge weapons for multiple blasts, but once charge is used, ship is left inert for a short period.
- New Protoss unit: Warprey; Flying unit that does increasingly higher damage the longer its laser hits a target.
- New Protoss unit: Mothership; You can only have one of these at a time. It has abilities like Timebomb, which creates a field around it stopping enemy missles inside. When the field fades, the missles fall to the ground. Can also use Planet Cracker, which fires a beam from the mothership down to the ground. Can also create a Black Hole in places, which literally sucks ships into it, destroying them.
More info coming as soon as it's available.
Press Release:
STARCRAFT® II UNVEILED
Blizzard Entertainment® announces highly anticipated sequel at
2007 Worldwide Invitational event in South Korea
SEOUL, South Korea May 19, 2007 Blizzard Entertainment® today unveiled StarCraft® II, the sequel to its award-winning real-time strategy game StarCraft, at the 2007 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event in Seoul, South Korea. The announcement took place inside the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, in front of thousands of attendees, who received a presentation that included a StarCraft II cinematic trailer and a gameplay demonstration by the development team.
Designed to be the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game, StarCraft II will feature the return of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg races, overhauled and re-imagined with Blizzards signature approach to game balance. Each race will be further distinguished from the others, with several new units and new gameplay mechanics, as well as new abilities for some of the classic StarCraft units that will be making a reappearance in the game. StarCraft II will also feature a custom 3D-graphics engine with realistic physics and the ability to render several large, highly detailed units and massive armies on-screen simultaneously.
With StarCraft II, well be able to do everything we wanted to do with the original StarCraft and more, stated Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. 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 include a unique single-player campaign, as well as fast-paced online play through an upgraded version of Blizzards renowned online gaming service, Battle.net®. In addition, the game will come with a powerful, full-featured map editor that will put the same tools used by Blizzards designers into the hands of players.
Blizzard is developing StarCraft II for simultaneous release on the Windows® and Macintosh® PC platforms. Further information about the game, including details on the single-player, multiplayer, and map-editor features, as well as system requirements, pricing, and availability, will be announced in the months ahead. To learn more about StarCraft II, please visit the official website at http://www.starcraft2.com.
About the StarCraft Series
Since its debut in 1998, the original StarCraft has won unprecedented critical acclaim and has remained a staple of tournament gaming worldwide. The games expansion set, StarCraft: Brood War, also released in 1998, is still considered by many to be one of the best add-on products ever created. To date, the series has sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide.* StarCrafts gritty sci-fi universe has also spawned numerous complementary products, including several novels and action figures, as well as a pen-and-paper role-playing game.
About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft® and the Warcraft®, StarCraft, and Diablo® series, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Vivendi Games, is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industrys most critically acclaimed games. Blizzards track record includes ten #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The companys online-gaming service, Battle.net, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active users. In South Korea, Blizzard is regarded as having played a major role in bringing about the birth of professional gamers and game broadcasting. Furthermore, its games are acknowledged as one of the key drivers behind the popularization of South Koreas PC game room business.
- Based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners.
