StarCraft II is a real-time strategy video game created by Blizzard Entertainment, first released in 2010. A sequel to the successful StarCraft, released in 1998, it is set in a militaristic far future. The narrative centers on a galactic struggle for dominance among various races.
StarCraft II single-player campaign is split into three installments, each of which focuses on one of the three races: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (released in 2010), Heart of the Swarm (2013) and Legacy of the Void (2015). A final campaign pack called StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops was released in 2016.
StarCraft II multi-player gameplay spawned a separate esports competition that later drew interest from companies other than Blizzard, and attracted attention in South Korea and elsewhere, similar to the original StarCraft esports.
Since 2017, StarCraft II multi-player mode, co-op mode and the first single-player campaign have been free-to-play.
The story of StarCraft II continues on the story of the original StarCraft releases, dealing with the races of StarCraft and characters of StarCraft.
Wings of Liberty is set four years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War, and focuses on the conflict between Jim Raynor’s rebel faction and the Terran Dominion regime led by its emperor, Arcturus Mengsk. The Zerg reappear as a frequent menace, though Raynor ultimately recovers their incapacitated queen Sarah Kerrigan from the Zerg home world.
In Heart of the Swarm, the Dominion attacks Raynor and Kerrigan, and the story mainly follows Kerrigan’s exploits against Mengsk’s forces as well as the newly emerged Protoss-Zerg hybrids.
In Legacy of the Void, the Protoss are the protagonists, led by Zeratul and Artanis, fighting against the architect of the Protoss-Zerg hybrids, the malevolent being known as Amon. In a short epilogue after the end of Legacy of the Void, all three factions join to confront Amon inside the Void.
Nova Covert Ops takes place sometime after Amon’s final defeat, and follows the ghost operative Nova as she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens the reformed Terran Dominion.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released in 2010, taking place four years after the end of StarCraft: Brood War. Two expansions, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void (both currently stand alone games), were planned from the beginning; the former was released in 2013 and the latter was released in 2015.
All the games in the main series are real-time strategy games, where the player views the events as a military commander for each of the three species.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the official sequel to StarCraft released for Windows and Mac OS X by Blizzard Entertainment on July 27, 2010. The game was announced at the Worldwide Invitational in South Korea on May 19, 2007, with a pre-rendered cinematic cut scene trailer and a gameplay demonstration of the Protoss. Further demonstrations regarding the game’s new features have been showcased at subsequent BlizzCons and other games conventions. The game incorporates a new 3D graphics engine and adds new features such as the Havok physics engine. StarCraft II also incorporates DirectX 10 level effects in Windows. Originally envisioned as a single game, StarCraft II was split into three parts during development, one for focusing on each race. The base game, Wings of Liberty, follows the Terrans, while two expansion packs, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, have been released to complement Wings of Liberty and further the story from the views of the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The story of Wings of Liberty continues from four years after the conclusion of Brood War and revolves around Jim Raynor’s struggles against the Terran Dominion.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is an expansion pack to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and was released on March 12, 2013. It is part two of the StarCraft II trilogy. The expansion includes additional units and multiplayer changes from Wings of Liberty, as well as a continuing campaign focusing on Kerrigan and the Zerg race. It spans 27 missions (20 main missions and 7 side missions).
The saga of StarCraft is ultimately completed with StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, which was released on November 10, 2015. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is a stand-alone game in which new units are added to all three races as well as changing existing units, and also makes groundbreaking changes to the economy-aspect of the game. The story of StarCraft is concluded by following the Protoss Race in their quest to reclaim their homeworld and for Kerrigan to ultimately slay the greatest threat to the entire universe. The game is divided into a 3-mission prologue, a 19-mission main story campaign, and a 3-mission epilogue that wraps everything up.
At BlizzCon 2015, during the “Future of StarCraft II” presentation, it was revealed that Blizzard will release additional mission packs to keep players engaged with StarCraft II. The Nova Covert Ops mission pack consists of three episodes, with a total of nine new missions. It did not require the purchase of StarCraft II and could be played with the Starter Edition. The release date for the first episode was March 29, 2016. At the same time, Blizzard has announced that new commanders are planned to be added to the Co-Op mode in Legacy of the Void as a DLC, with Karax to be the first addition given for free.
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