StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Programming and Art Design Has Begun

A recent interview with Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard Entertainment, revealed that StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's development is full steam ahead, with the Wings of Liberty successful launch.

Speaking to MTV, via VG47, Pardo said that, “Now that we’ve shipped [Wings of Liberty], we’re just now getting serious about breaking ground on [Heart of the Swarm].”

“We always have a lot of ideas and there’s been some design work on it, but hardcore art and programming is just now starting to begin. It’s too early to estimate, but as soon as we can get them out there, we’d love to.”

Asked exactly what is the exact status of these follow-ups for Wings of Liberty, as it was quite unclear if they were full-fledged sequels or simple expansions. Apparently, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void are a bit of both.

“From a single-player point of view, they’re going to kind of feel like sequels. It’s going to be a pretty meaningful amount of content,” Pardo said.

He continued that, “Multiplayer is going to be more like an expansion set sort of vibe. We’re not going to ship all brand new races. There will definitely be additions to multiplayer, but that’s going to feel like an expansion set.”

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released to both critical acclaim and huge sales on the 27th of July on the PC. This was just the first part of the game, with two others to come at some other point in the future.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be concerned with the Zerg, while Legacy of the Void will have the Protoss as its main focus. Of course, both games have Blizzard's tradition release date, “when it's done.”