StarCraft II is an upcoming game for the PC users. It will be the game in the trilogy of military science fiction and will be released under the genre of Real-time strategy video games. StarCraft II is under the development of Blizzard Entertainment. It will be released as the sequel for the award wining game StarCraft, which was released in 1998. Initially StarCraft II was announced as a single game, but at BlizzCon 2008 it was again announced as a trilogy. The trilogy will consist of one game and two expansions. The titles are named as Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void respectively. StarCraft II is different from the original series as in the original series there were 8-10 missions campaigns, one for each race, whereas in the StarCraft II trilogy will have only one, 26-30 mission campaign centered around a single race. In the expansions the Terrans will be the centre of the first campaign, followed by Zerg and Protoss races in the expansions. According to the developers Blizzard Entertainment each expansion will be big enough to give you the feeling of a full game. Now release dates are confirmed by the developers. StarCraft II is developed for Windows Vista, Windows XP and Mac OS X. Parent company of Blizzard Entertainment, Activision Blizzard believes the game will be released in the year 2009, no official announcement are yet to be released by the developers.

StarCraft II is designed in such a style that will look like an ultimate competitive real- time strategy game. The game has an advantage of success of its forerunner, StarCraft. The famous three races of StarCraft will return to the game. The three races are Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These are the only playable races of the game. StarCraft II is mainly designed to focus more and more on multiplayer mode, as compared to StarCraft. There are few changes though as the Batlle.net is improved, a new ladder system is installed it will rank games. A new matchmaking mechanics is included for the purpose of match-up players of equal skills. The replay function of the previous game which allows players to record and review past games seems to be improved greatly. StarCraft II will follow its predecessor to use cinematic cut-scenes to press forward the plot. This time the quality of in-game cut scenes is also improved. These in game cut scenes are rendered on-the-fly and use the same game engine as the graphics in the proper game. According to Blizzard with the new graphics engine you can actually create in game cut scenes which will give you the look of near-cinematic quality. According to the developers they also made some changes according to the fan community.

StarCraft II starts four years after StarCraft: brood War and features the return of many of the old characters from the original series. It includes Arcturus Mengsk, Zeratul, Artanis, Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor. In StarCraft II players will revisit the world from old game like Mar Sara, Braxis, and Char, as well as new worlds like jungle planet Bel’shir. Xel’Naga will play an important role in the game, as this ancient race is responsible for the creation of Protoss and the Zerg. The game will continue the events of the previous game. The events of the previous will affect the game heavily.

Development for the game dates way back to May 19, 2007, at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea. StarCraft II was developed under the code name of Medusa, for simultaneous release on Windows XP, Windows Vista and MAC OS X. The release dates are yet to be revealed by Blizzard. StarCraft II will support both DirectX 9 (Pixel Shader 2.0) as well as it is fully compatible with DirectX 10. The use of DirectX 10 graphic effects is not confirmed by the developing team. For the Mac users they will use OpenGL. One more feature that makes StarCraft II interesting is the use of Havok Physics engine. It will give game more realistic environmental elements such as “debris rolling down a ramp.” Furthermore there are plans to implement VoIP in the game.

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