Vultures and Mines Not Central to Starcraft

Starcraft II is now set to arrive in the first half of 2010, after being delayed for the second time this year, but that does not mean that the guys at Blizzard are not interested in keeping the hype level up by getting high-profile company people talking about the upcoming real-time strategy title. Dustin Browder, who is the show runner for Starcraft II and who has also worked on the Command & Conquer series and on MechWarrior 2, talked about how difficult it had been to actually decide how much to keep from the original title and how much to innovate for the sequel.

Dustin Browder said that battles over which units should be kept and which ones eliminated were a chronic part of the process. He told Gamasutra that, “I have guys who tell me I should cut everything and start all over. And I have guys who say, 'Don't you dare touch anything. It's perfect.' It's definitely difficult. There are definitely the extremes on either end. But there is a wide group of people in the middle who feel like, 'Change some, but not too much.'And then they'll argue about which ones are okay and which ones are not okay.”

The project lead would not reveal which elements from the Terran, Protoss and Zerg cannon had been deemed irreplaceable and which were going to the cutting room floor, but, once the information is fully out, expect fans of the various units and tactics to actually start big petitions asking for them to be re-introduced in Starcraft II, which is conveniently spliced into three parts, to be released probably one year apart.

Blizzard has repeatedly said that iteration and delays are part of its design strategy, so don't be surprised if, between now and the release date, Blizzard will take out and modify some of the units that have been shown to the public as the development process has progressed.