14 DAY TRIAL // Arguably the biggest PC exclusive release of 2009, the game that will make all nay sayers drop the phrase “PC gaming is dying” is Starcraft II, the real time strategy title from Blizzard announced in 2008 and set to be released sometime in the fall of this year.
And there are rumors softly revealed across the Internet that the developers are getting ready to announce that they will begin an open beta phase for the game, one which could begin any minute now.
Xordiah, one of the writers for fan site Starcraftwire, has been in Vienna and apparently gotten word from a German fan that Blizzard has set, internally, a date for an open beta that will be announced to the public sometime later during spring. The German fan has also some new details regarding the shape the game is taking at the moment.
It seems that the multiplayer element of the real time strategy title is more or less done and certainly playable, which is great news given that the extended life of the first Starcraft was based mainly on its appeal in multiplayer. Also, the Protoss race is getting a lot of love from the developers, with many of the units being tweaked to offer a balanced army still delivering the same feel as the initial incarnation of the technology dependent race.
Blizzard currently has two big games announced and in development, with Starcraft II being set to arrive before Diablo III, the next installment in the dungeon crawling series. The bad news regarding Starcraft II is that Blizzard has pretty much split the game in three installments, much like Valve has done with the next episode of Half Life, intending to release the campaign for each race separately. The first campaign to come in 2009 is the Terran one, called Wings of Liberty.