No Fury Like A Woman Betrayed
Sarah Kerrigan is one of Blizzard’s most famous and complex characters. A powerful psychic who spent her formative years being used and betrayed by her own Terran people, Kerrigan was infested by the xenomorphic alien Zerg during the events of the original StarCraft. As a member of the Zerg, Kerrigan titled herself the Queen of Blades, destroyed all opposition in order to lead the Zerg Swarm, and then worked to assure the survival and evolution of the Zerg by any means necessary.
During the Terran campaign featured in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Kerrigan was de-infested and returned to Terran form by the man who loved her, Jim Raynor. Angry and confused by everything that had happened to her in her life, Kerrigan began developing a strong personality of her own for the first time. She felt torn between her affection for Raynor and her hatred of Terran Emperor Mengsk, whose betrayal had led to her original Zerg infestation. With countless enemies inherited from her time as the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan decides to regain control of the Zerg and enact her revenge against Mengsk.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is Kerrigan’s story, featuring her as the leader of the Zerg Swarm as she struggles with her humanity and desire for vengeance. This StarCraft II expansion features twenty single-player missions, various unit changes that affect the single- and multiplayer game, and new maps for multiplayer battles. The single-player campaign will begin with Kerrigan gaining power and growing her Zerg armies. As it goes on, the player will learn more about the Zerg than ever before and discover whether Kerrigan can be redeemed or if she gives in to her rage and once again becomes the Queen of Blades.
Kerrigan, the hero unit in almost all of Heart of the Swarm’s missions, will be a front-line unit with the ability to be restored at a Zerg hatchery if she falls in battle, giving her campaign an aggressive feel. In her part-Terran, part-Zerg form, Kerrigan is a unique unit who can be customized by the player through the use of a new mechanic termed “Battle Focus.” Battle Focus is a form of character specialization that can be altered between missions, allowing players to try out different strategies based on Kerrigan’s battle abilities. Abilities will be categorized as either Corruption, tapping into her Zerg side, or Special Ops, tapping into her history as a Terran Ghost agent.
Players will be able to customize Zerg units via mutation and the infestation of exotic alien species. Heart of the Swarm will take the player to bizarre and exotic alien locations as Kerrigan searches for alien DNA to strengthen the Zerg. Various new Zerg units are being created that resemble mutations of various StarCraft species, and players will be able to choose which kinds of mutations appear in various Zerg units.
Although many of the single-player mechanics like Zerg mutation won’t be available in the multiplayer game, Heart of the Swarm will have a separate multiplayer ladder from Wings of Liberty. Each species will have new units available, and some units are being retired. Terrans will be seeing the fewest changes, as they are already more flexible in multiplayer than the Zerg and Protoss. New and redesigned Terran units will have a higher-tech design than older units, however. The Zerg overseer is being removed from multiplayer and replaced with the flying viper unit. Zerg will also be receiving a burrowing siege unit called the swarm host and may also gain access to lurkers. Finally, the Protoss will lose the mothership and carrier units in multiplayer. Those units look to be approximately replaced with oracle and tempest units, and a new replicant unit has the capability to copy enemy units, including gaining upgrades that the controlling player hasn’t researched.
Fans of Sarah Kerrigan and the Zerg should be excited about the Heart of the Swarm expansion, which will be providing a complete story for Kerrigan and plenty of new toys for Zerg players to enjoy. While Wings of Liberty’s single-player campaign focused on strategic choices, Heart of the Swarm will feature an offensive campaign in which Kerrigan’s Zerg will be facing off against Terrans, Protoss, and other Zerg in equal measures. On the multiplayer side, many StarCraft fans hope to see a better balance between Terrans and the other races in Heart of the Swarm’s competitive game.
As always with Blizzard, there is no announced release date for Heart of the Swarm, but Blizzard’s original development projections suggest the expansion may appear sometime this summer.
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