14 DAY TRIAL // The developers at Blizzard have not said exactly when they planned to launch the second installment in the Starcraft II saga, called Heart of the Swarm, but they are now ready to talk about the structure of the new game, including the central role that Kerrigan, former Terran Ghost and now Queen of Blades, would play in the single player experience.
Dustin Browder, who is the one of the leading developers working on Heart of the Swarm, has told Eurogamer that, “She's definitely the centre of most activity on the battlefield. It's fun to have that kind of power and now the lore supports it - whereas Raynor couldn't realistically stand up to 27 siege tanks, Kerrigan can.”
He says that the unit will not be actually overpowered and that, “It matches the lore and at the same time lets us create a new gameplay experience so the player really feels they're getting something new, new types of challenges and things to accomplish.”
It seems that the premise of the single-player campaign in Heart of Swarm will be that the Terrans, apparently having learned nothing from former encounter with Kerrigan and her power, have imprisoned her after the conclusion of the Wings of Liberty campaign.
She apparently managed to break out of confinement, retaining her human good looks and aiming to regain control over the various Zerg splinter groups that have appeared after she was taken out of the Swarm.
It seems that Kerrigan will have two upgrade trees, one called Spec Ops and more oriented towards support powers and another called Corruption, which will tap into the control over the Swarm.
Using one of the trees will deliver points to upgrade and deliver new abilities and Heart of the Swarm will also include a number of upgrades for all available Zerg units, allowing them to become more powerful as the game progresses.
Starcraft II should also get another expansion based around the Protoss.