The story of StarCraft II continues on the story of the original StarCraft releases, dealing with the races of StarCraft and characters of StarCraft.
Wings of Liberty is set four years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War, and focuses on the conflict between Jim Raynor’s rebel faction and the Terran Dominion regime led by its emperor, Arcturus Mengsk. The Zerg reappear as a frequent menace, though Raynor ultimately recovers their incapacitated queen Sarah Kerrigan from the Zerg home world.
In Heart of the Swarm, the Dominion attacks Raynor and Kerrigan, and the story mainly follows Kerrigan’s exploits against Mengsk’s forces as well as the newly emerged Protoss-Zerg hybrids.
In Legacy of the Void, the Protoss are the protagonists, led by Zeratul and Artanis, fighting against the architect of the Protoss-Zerg hybrids, the malevolent being known as Amon. In a short epilogue after the end of Legacy of the Void, all three factions join to confront Amon inside the Void.
Nova Covert Ops takes place sometime after Amon’s final defeat, and follows the ghost operative Nova as she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens the reformed Terran Dominion.
StarCraft II is a real-time strategy video game created by Blizzard Entertainment, first released in 2010. A sequel to the successful StarCraft, released in 1998, it is set in a militaristic far future. The narrative centers on a galactic struggle for dominance among various races.
StarCraft II single-player campaign is split into three installments, each of which focuses on one of the three races: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (released in 2010), Heart of the Swarm (2013) and Legacy of the Void (2015). A final campaign pack called StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops was released in 2016.
StarCraft II multi-player gameplay spawned a separate esports competition that later drew interest from companies other than Blizzard, and attracted attention in South Korea and elsewhere, similar to the original StarCraft esports.
Since 2017, StarCraft II multi-player mode, co-op mode and the first single-player campaign have been free-to-play.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released in 2010, taking place four years after the end of StarCraft: Brood War. Two expansions, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void (both currently stand alone games), were planned from the beginning; the former was released in 2013 and the latter was released in 2015.
All the games in the main series are real-time strategy games, where the player views the events as a military commander for each of the three species.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the official sequel to StarCraft released for Windows and Mac OS X by Blizzard Entertainment on July 27, 2010. The game was announced at the Worldwide Invitational in South Korea on May 19, 2007 with a pre-rendered cinematic cut scene trailer and a gameplay demonstration of the Protoss. Further demonstrations regarding the game’s new features have been showcased at subsequent BlizzCons and other games conventions. The game incorporates a new 3D graphics engine and adds new features such as the Havok physics engine. StarCraft II also incorporates DirectX 10 level effects in Windows. Originally envisioned as a single game, StarCraft II was split into three parts during development, one for focusing on each race. The base game, Wings of Liberty, follows the Terrans, while two expansion packs, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, have been released to complement Wings of Liberty and further the story from the views of the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The story of Wings of Liberty continues from four years after the conclusion of Brood War and revolves around Jim Raynor’s struggles against the Terran Dominion.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is an expansion pack to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and was released on March 12, 2013. It is part two of the StarCraft II trilogy. The expansion includes additional units and multiplayer changes from Wings of Liberty, as well as a continuing campaign focusing on Kerrigan and the Zerg race. It spans 27 missions (20 main missions and 7 side missions).
The saga of StarCraft is ultimately completed with StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, which was released on November 10, 2015. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is a stand-alone game in which new units are added to all three races as well as changing existing units, and also makes groundbreaking changes to the economy-aspect of the game. The story of StarCraft is concluded by following the Protoss Race in their quest to reclaim their homeworld and for Kerrigan to ultimately slay the greatest threat to the entire universe. The game is divided into a 3-mission prologue, a 19-mission main story campaign, and a 3-mission epilogue that wraps everything up.
At BlizzCon 2015, during the “Future of StarCraft II” presentation, it was revealed that Blizzard will release additional mission packs to keep players engaged with StarCraft II.The Nova Covert Ops mission pack consists of three episodes, with a total of nine new missions. It did not require the purchase of StarCraft II and could be played with the Starter Edition. The release date for the first episode was March 29, 2016. At the same time, Blizzard has announced that new commanders are planned to be added to the Co-Op mode in Legacy of the Void as a DLC, with Karax to be the first addition given for free.
Versus
The versus mode can be 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, with the numbers indicating the number of players per team. The 1v1 mode is the most well-known one, and the basis for the esport competition (see below). In it, the players collect experience points and achievements, but these do not affect future gameplay per se. The complexity of the game grows as the player progresses through the ranks, based on a matchmaking system that is based on the number of wins and losses. The so-called “ladder”, the ordering of all players, is organized per geographic region, and consists of tiers called leagues, ranging from the lowest bronze, through silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master and in turn the highest, grandmaster league.
As the number of players per team grows, the maps they can play on typically change as well. It is also possible to play multiplayer tournaments in each team size, where a team either wins or is eliminated. The versus mode also includes the “Archon” option, where the matches are ostensibly 1v1 but more than one human player control what is usually controlled by a single person.
Co-op
The co-op mode involves two human players playing against an A.I. using special hero characters, and where collecting XP leads to leveling up that in turn affects future gameplay. The heroes are modeled after the characters from the single-player campaign, amended with extra abilities. This mode also features what is called “mutations”, where the game parameters change in order to present a bigger challenge. There are 18 co-op commanders in total to choose from, divided evenly between the three races (6 of each). The co-op mode takes heroes from the main game storyline although not all heroes (46 heroes) are playable characters.
Since its release, StarCraft II was played professionally throughout the world, though much like its predecessor StarCraft: Brood War’s professional competition, the highest level of play has historically been centered in South Korea.
Since the release of StarCraft II, a number of tournaments have been hosted in Korea and elsewhere, such as the Global StarCraft II League (GSL).
The game was widely considered the largest esport in the world during its early years and has been credited as bringing esports to the rest of the world in the way the original brought it to South Korea. It has since experienced a decline and a more recent resurgence following its transition to a free-to-play business model.
In 2012, Blizzard started the StarCraft II World Championship Series (WCS) as the primary sanctioned StarCraft II tournament circuit. Since 2013, both Korean individual leagues like the Global StarCraft II League (GSL) and non-Korean events such as Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) and Dreamhack had been included in the WCS system, distributing points and guaranteeing spots that qualify players for the Global Finals, held annually at BlizzCon.
Since 2020, Blizzard changed the format of WCS by entering into a three-year partnership with esports organizers ESL and DreamHack.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (2004) as well as the multi million-selling video game franchises Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. The company also operates Battle.net, an online gaming service.
Founded as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce the company began development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n’ Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings, and changed its name to Chaos Studios, Inc. the same year, then to Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates in 1994; that year, the company released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which would receive numerous sequels and led to the highly popular World of Warcraft. By the end of the decade, Blizzard also found success with the action role-playing game Diablo (1997) and strategy game StarCraft (1998). The company became part of Vivendi Games in 1998, which would then merge with Activision in 2008, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company; Activision Blizzard became completely independent from Vivendi in 2013. Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business, while part of the larger Microsoft Gaming division; Blizzard Entertainment retains its function as the publisher of games developed by their studios.
Since 2005, Blizzard Entertainment has hosted annual gaming conventions for fans to meet and to promote their games, called BlizzCon, as well as a number of global events outside the United States. In the 2010s and 2020s, Blizzard has continued development of expansion packs for World of Warcraft (the most recent being 2024’s The War Within), while also releasing StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Diablo III (2012) and Diablo IV (2023), as well as new material most notably the online multiplayer games Hearthstone, a collectible card game; Heroes of the Storm, a battle arena game; and Overwatch and Overwatch 2, which are first-person shooters. Since 2018, the company’s reputation has suffered from a series of poorly received games, controversies involving players and staff, and allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct against leading Blizzard employees.
Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991, after all three had earned their bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles the year prior.
The name “Silicon & Synapse” was a high concept from the three founders, with “silicon” representing the building block of a computer, while “synapse” the building block of the brain. The initial logo was created by Stu Rose. To fund the company, each of them contributed about $10,000, Morhaime borrowing the sum interest-free from his grandmother. Their offices were established in a business park near the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California.
During the first two years, the company focused on creating game ports for other studios. Interplay Productions’ Brian Fargo was friends with Adham and had a 10% stake in Silicon & Synapse. Fargo provided the company with conversion contacts for the games Interplay was publishing, starting with Battle Chess. Other titles included Ports include titles such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I and Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess. Fargo then enlisted Silicon & Synapse around 1991 to help develop RPM Racing that Interplay was preparing for the launch of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Fargo remained impressed with Silicon & Synapse’s work, and provided them the ability to write their own games to be published by Interplay. The first two titles developed solely by the company were Rock n’ Roll Racing, a sequel to RPM Racing, and The Lost Vikings inspired by Lemmings.
Around 1993, co-founder Adham told the other executives that he did not like the name “Silicon & Synapse” anymore, as outsiders were confusing the element silicon used in microchips with silicone polymer of breast implants. By the end of 1993, Adham changed the name to “Chaos Studios,” reflecting on the haphazardness of their development processes.
Near this same time, the company started to explore options in publishing their own games, as their conversion contracts were not as lucrative for the company. Inspired by the multiplayer aspects of Westwood Studios’ Dune II and the high fantasy setting of The Lord of the Rings, the company began work on what would become Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Adham saw this as a start of a series of interconnected titles, similar to the Gold Box series by Strategic Simulations. To support its development and keep the company afloat, the studio took several more conversion contracts, though the founders were going into debt to keep their twelve developers employed. Davidson & Associates, a company that published educational software and which had previously employed Silicon & Synapse for conversion contracts, made an offer to buy the company for $4 million. Interplay was negotiating to be the publisher for Warcraft, and Fargo cautioned Adham and Morhaime against selling the company. Adham and Morhiame rejected Davidson & Associates’ initial offer, but the company came back with another offer of $6.75 million (equivalent to $14.3 million in 2024), assuring to the founders that they would have creative control over the games they developed. Adham and Morhaime accepted the offer in early 1994.
Shortly after the sale, they were contacted by a Florida company, Chaos Technologies, who claimed their trademark rights on the name “Chaos” and wanted the company to pay US$100,000 (equivalent to $212,146 in 2024) to keep the name. Not wanting to pay that sum, the executives decided to change the studio’s name to “Ogre Studios” by April 1994. However, Davidson & Associates did not like this name, and forced the company to change it. According to Morhaime, Adham began running through a dictionary from the start, writing down any word that seemed interesting and passing it to the legal department to see if it had any complications. One of the first words they found to be interesting and cleared the legal check was “blizzard”, leading them to change their name to “Blizzard Entertainment” by May 1994. Warcraft was released in November 1994, and within a year, helped to establish Blizzard among other development studios like Westwood.
Blizzard Entertainment has developed 23 games since the inception of the company in 1991.
The majority of the games Blizzard published are in the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series. Since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Diablo (1997), and StarCraft (1998), the focus has been almost exclusively on those three franchises. Overwatch (2016) became an exception years later, bringing the number of main franchises to four. Each franchise is supported by other media based around its intellectual property such as novels, collectible card games, comics and video shorts. Blizzard announced in 2006 that they would be producing a Warcraft live-action film. The movie was directed by Duncan Jones, financed and produced by Legendary Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, and others, and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was released in June 2016. On October 4, 2022, Overwatch servers were officially shut off at the same time Overwatch 2’s went up.
Notable unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, an adventure game which was canceled on May 22, 1998; Shattered Nations, a turn-based strategy game cancelled around 1996; and StarCraft: Ghost, an action game aimed for release on consoles, co-developed with Nihilistic Software, which was “postponed indefinitely” on March 24, 2006, after being in development hell for much of its lifespan.
Work on a project called Nomad started around 1998 after the release of Starcraft, with development led by Duane Stinnett. Nomad was inspired by the tabletop role playing game Necromunda that was played in a post-apocalyptic setting. The project had vague goals, and around that time, many of the staff of Blizzard began playing MMORPGs EverQuest and Ultima Online. Nomad was cancelled in 1999 as Blizzard shifted to making their own MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
In the wake of the 2018 layoffs, two projects were cancelled: One was codenamed Orion, an asynchronous card game for mobile devices designed by Hearthstone developers. While the game was considered fun to play when players were engaged in real time, the asynchronous aspect diluted the enjoyment of the. The second, codenamed Ares, was a first-person shooter within the Starcraft universe inspired by Electronic Arts’ Battlefield series that had been in development for three years.
After seven years of development, Blizzard revealed the cancellation of an unannounced MMO codenamed Titan on September 23, 2014, though Overwatch was created from its assets. The company also has a history of declining to set release dates, choosing to instead take as much time as needed, generally saying a given product is “done when it’s done.”
Pax Imperia II was originally announced as a title to be published by Blizzard. Blizzard eventually dropped Pax Imperia II, though, when it decided it might be in conflict with their other space strategy project, which became known as StarCraft. THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released the game in 1997 as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain.
The company announced in January 2022 that it was near release of another new intellectual property, named Odyssey according to Bloomberg News, a survival game that had been at work at the studio for nearly six years before its cancellation in 2024. Bloomberg stated that the game’s origins came from World of Warcraft developer Craig Amai, and was originally prototyped using the Unreal Engine, which Blizzard licensed from Epic Games. When the game was revealed in 2022, about 100 employees were working on it, but around the same time, there was effort to switch from Unreal to Synapse, Blizzard’s engine used for mobile games, though artists continued to develop assets in Unreal. Near when Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, there was an internal belief that they would be able to bring on more developers to complete the transition to Synapse and have the game ready for a 2026 release, but with the culling of 1,900 staff from Microsoft Gaming in January 2024, the game’s development was cancelled.