Blizzard Wants Starcraft II to Be Mom-Friendly

Starcraft II is among the most expected titles coming next year, partly because it is the sequel to one of the most successful RTS (Real Time Strategy) titles out there, Starcraft, which is still played on a worldwide level.

We recently learned that, because of the huge storylines this title would include, the game would be split into three volumes, each of them following the stories of the Terran, Zerg and Protoss respectively. This did spark a bit of controversy but Blizzard carefully explained to fans that another decision would have meant delaying the game for a very long time, which would have been very bad for gamers.

Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, Chris Sigaty, the lead producer of Starcraft II, revealed the fact that the development team wants to make the game appeal to a wide variety of players, from hardcore professional players to casual ones, like parents. Then, he went on to develop the fact that one of his personal goals is to make his own mother play and enjoy Starcraft II, just to show people how user friendly the game would be.

“It’s definitely a very challenging tight rope walk,” he said of trying to make the game for both e-sports players and a broader audience. “We’ve trying to make sure that it’s perfectly balanced for e-sport, but look - I’m going to try to get my mom to play this game. I mean, I know she can’t micromanage at the level that these pro gamers can, so we’re actually experimenting back in the opposite direction… so that even the layman can come in and get a grasp of these cool things in the game.”

He added that Blizzard employed two former professional gamers to test the alpha stage of the game and report to them any bug. He also revealed planning on bringing in some casual gamers to get their own feedback about the strategy experience.

“Real-time strategy games at this level - there’s a lot more there to think about and it gets really frantic really fast, and so it’s definitely off-putting to somebody that’s totally new to video games,” he said. “But we want to make it much easier for people to explore whether it would interest them.”

It's really interesting to find out that Blizzard isn't making a game targeted only at die-hard fans of the franchise who know every unit by heart, but also approaches people who aren't familiar with the first title and who might be interested in this new one.