It’s now been 7 years since StarCraft 2 was released. In that time, we’ve had one game, two expansion packs, as well as a DLC that seems to have wrapped up the story (for the time being, anyway). It took even longer—a whopping 12 years—for Blizzard to follow up Brood War with a sequel. In the meantime, they released a spiritual sequel (WarCraft 3) as well what would become their most popular game (World of WarCraft).
Though Wings of Liberty was met with critical acclaim in 2010, there were few who would defend its story (I should know, as I frequented the forums quite a bit in those days, and I rarely saw a positive review). Heart of the Swarm came out in 2013, doing little to remedy the damage, while Legacy of the Void came out in 2015, and is generally seen as having the best story.
I was one of the few who didn’t much mind the story of WOL. I didn’t necessarily disagree with all the arguments that were made against it, but I enjoyed the game, and felt a need to be honest about my feelings. However, with the release of HOTS, I finally succumbed to the band wagon, realizing that the story I wanted wasn’t the one I had gotten. I had expected the dark middle chapter, but got a story that doubled down on WOL’s most ludicrious parts. In fact, I would argue that the damage HOTS did was so large, that it retroactively reduced the quality of WOL in my eyes.
Like others, I share the opinion that LOTV is the best of the bunch. Its story is more engaging than the last two, and it is a sort-of-fitting coda to the trilogy. However, I suspect the reason I say this is because by the time LOTV was released, I had settled with the fact that Blizzard wasn’t going to change their tune. That is not insignificant. LOTV ends with the very “all races team up to fight the ultimate evil” plot point that everyone was fearing, but because we had been given five years to grapple with the fact that there was no way around it, enjoying it for what it was becoming easier.
Despite that, there is no point denying that Blizzard took their shot at the story and missed. This doesn’t even seem a case of majority opinion overwhelming the minority. Hardly anyone seems that willing to defend the story. And as I’ll argue in this essay, they are justified in doing so.
My Theory on Why the Story Failed
There are many arguments on why SC2’s story failed to engage its audience: the story was clichéd and “Hollywoodized”, there was too much emphasis on prophecies, there were too many plot holes, and so on. While I don’t disagree with these arguments, I don’t think they can fully explain why the story failed. To do that, we must dig deeper, explaining how the clichés turned up in the first place, as well as why the plot holes emerged.
There are two explanations that, in my eyes, help explain most of the criticism levied at the story. The first of this is that Blizzard took a deeply cynical story and forced it to become idealistic. The second is that Blizzard simply didn’t put up enough legwork into crafting a complex story, which resulted in not only plot holes, but strange contradictions and retcons as well. More on that after the jump.
From Cynicism to Idealism
The original StarCraft is deeply cynical. In Episode I, we play as a group of rebels lead by a man who turns out to be just as bad (if not worse) than the ones we are trying to overthrow. Victory is bittersweet, because while the heroes technically succeed in their mission (to destroy the Confederacy), nothing really seems to have been won. The system hasn’t changed, Kerrigan is (presumably dead), and Raynor has gone from being a marshal to a branded criminal (as well as a man with little reason to live).
In Episode II, we play as the Zerg, who are basically pure evil, which means they actually achieve their goal (for a time being, anyway): Kerrigan comes back infested, and the Overmind’s invasion of Aiur is successful (as we complete the campaign with its body fully integrated into the surface of the Protoss homeworld). Finally, in episode III, we play as the Protoss, who do defeat the Overmind, but not after a bitter civil war that nearly destroys them all. To pour salt in the wound, the victory turns out to be bittersweet, as the Protoss must flee Aiur from the remaining feral Zerg.
Things become even worse in Brood War, in ways I don’t I need to repeat. It’s a story populated by heroes that are hopelessly outmatched by the villains, time and time again. Even before Kerrigan wins at the end of the game, the UED—another foe—gets to have their victory too. That’s two villain factions winning for one hero faction winning (the Protoss does actually succeed in reclaiming Shakurs in Episode IV, though obviously not without some losses).
The story of StarCraft is deeply cynical, and the story of its sequel is not. Now, it should be mentioned there is nothing inherently superior about cynicism than idealism. The point that I’m trying to make is not that SC2 crashed because of idealism, but rather because it changed the core worldview of the story, and for no good discernable reason. Chris Metzen has claimed he was an angrier man back in the 90s than he is now, which explains why the worldview of the story changed, though not why it had to.
It is possible to create a story that starts out dark and then becomes lighter. It is, after all, the standard recipe for storytelling. First, there must be a conflict, and only after can the heroes succeed. But the change from cynicism to idealism is too abrupt in StarCraft to be believable, having only occurred because the writers wanted it, and not because the characters achieved it. It is telling that the change occurs between the first and second game too. Already from the get-go, SC2 was a different beast than its predecessor.
It didn’t seem so, though. When the story of WOL begins, everything looks incredibly hopeless: Raynor is fighting a seemingly unwinnable fight against Arcturus Mengsk, and only after three missions, Kerrigan arrives once more, threatening to “finish the job”. True, there is a short moment of Raynor gazing longingly at a picture of Kerrigan (a hint of where the story will go), but apart from that, the beginning of WOL’s story doesn’t much contradict where BW left off.
In fact, part of the reason I think I responded so well to WOL (despite its many shortcomings), is that, for the most part, it fits the original game’s cynical worldview. Raynor is an alchoholic who has given up hope, the colonists on Agria are being ignored by the Dominion, and Raynor’s new allies—Tychus and Tosh, specifically—are a traitor criminal and an unstable soldier who only wants defeat Mengsk and have no hope that a positive change is possible (Dr. Hanson is an exception, though her becoming infested is obviously not very idealistic).
It is really only when the larger story starts to creep in that the problems begin to emerge. Yes, I could make some points about how the non-linear storytelling all but killed the pacing of the second act, but that is only a minor complaint. The major issue is still the direction the writers decided to go with Kerrigan. Now, there are two problems here. The first is that Blizzard decided that Raynor loves Kerrigan and wants to save her instead of killing her, which totally negates their last encounter in Brood War (True Colors, to be more specific). The second is that Kerrigan is now destined to be a savior. Now, that could have been a great source of dramatic tension. After all, the trope where the enemy is the key to victory is what Blizzard did in Episode III with the Dark Templar. But Blizzard squanders the potential of this opportunity completely, by essentially whitewashing Kerrigan. Instead of being a necessary evil, Kerrigan is just... forgiven.
There are major problems with this. While I agree that Kerrigan and the Queen of Blades have never been the same person (the change in personality in Episode II is too strong and abrupt for that), there is something deeply troubling with Blizzard not only forgetting how many Kerrigan have killed, but also that one of them (Fenix) was a dear friend to Raynor. In fact, this is something practically everyone who played the campaign managed to notice, while Blizzard didn’t. This point is proven when Raynor finally mentions Fenix in HOTS, no doubt because Blizzard read the criticism of WOL and realized their error only too late.
There is nothing wrong with changing past errors. After all, this sort of flexibility is one of the reasons LOTV is the best part of the trilogy. The problem is that these errors occur because Blizzard essentially forced a change in worldview in the story. By essentially wanting the story to be idealistic, Blizzard has to ignore common logic, meaning Raynor not only goes from wanting to kill Kerrigan to kiss her, but casually forgets the death of his friend in the process. It’s not that Blizzard doesn’t understand Raynor, it’s just that they want him to be someone he’s not.
There are other examples in the story that shows how the changed worldview has dire consequences (the Protoss being more united than ever is one of them), but this is the most significant. The whitewashing of Kerrigan ripples out throughout the rest of the story, with HOTS becoming her redemption arc, and LOTV becoming what we were essentially promised in the first place: the three races uniting together against a common enemy to defeat Amon, with Kerrigan dealing the final blow.
A Decline in Complexity
In this second part of the article, I will argue that SC2 is a less complex game than its predecessor, not necessarily in terms of thematic depth, but rather in the structure of the story. I argue that Blizzard put a lot of thought into small details in the first game, and less so in the sequel, and that this had an impact on the quality of the story.
The Problem With Blizzard’s RTS Story Structure
One of the hardest things about telling a campaign in a Blizzard RTS is their one-race-at-a-time structure. Now, it’s not hard to see why they do it this way. After all, changing perspectives mid-story has a serious impact on the gameplay, as we have to begin to learn a new race just as we started to get the hang of another (essentially creating the longest training arc ever, instead of splitting them into pieces). It’s also more natural for non-interactive stories to have changing perspectives. Games (particularly ones where you control entire races, and not just single characters) require a different kind of immersion, one where the focus is sharper. In other words: doing one race at the time is probably the optimal choice.
However, there is an inherent flaw in this design, which is that, while events in one part of the story is happening, other events are happening in the background. And by constraining the player’s perspective, we either have to be given hints of the background events, or we have to retroactively explain them at a later point. Both of these alternatives are fickle. Giving proper hints without intruding on the focus is difficult, and explaining stuff that has already happened often just ends up being clunky, and with the pacing practically dying in the process as the player is bogged down in exposition.
Despite this, the original SC handles the problems of this structure rather well. In fact, what many people forget, is how many of the story’s key moments happens off-stage. Case-in-point: the psi emitters. In Episode I, we are told these devices have the power to attract Zerg, something Mengsk exploits for his own gain. However, there are hints that this is not quite a precise explanation. In Episode II we learn (though never told out right) that the psi emitters don’t force the Zerg’s movement, but rather attracts them because the Overmind is interested in the psionic power of Terrans. Once they gain control of Kerrigan, the Zerg leave the Terran worlds for Char, as their mission is complete. This is a very subtle point that isn’t really explained, probably because the Overmind has no motive to tell us why we had to go to the Terran worlds after we left them.
A lot of people misunderstand this point, still believing the psi emitters are capable of steering Zerg all right (if they did, it’s a wonder they weren’t used even more). Even Blizzard themselves misunderstand it, as evidenced in the Brood War mission “Reign of Fire”, as well as the “Nova: Covert Ops” campaign. What is important to understand here, is that things are happening in the background of one story that have important ramifications in another. Whereas we in Episode I think the psi emitters are a device to attract Zerg, we learn in Episode II that the truth is more complex.
There is more. After Kerrigan’s infestation, she calls out to Mengsk and Raynor, with the former sending Duke, and the latter going himself. On the surface, this looks to be a superficial detail, seemingly existing only to give Kerrigan some enemies to fight on Char. And while the arrival of Duke really does just serve that point, the arrival of Raynor is more important. After all, if Raynor isn’t called to Char, he doesn’t meet Tassadar, and therefore doesn’t fight alongside them in the final mission on Aiur. In other words: if Kerrigan hadn’t called out to Raynor, the Overmind might not have been defeated, and Raynor might never have become an ally of the Protoss. Significant, indeed.
In the Protoss campaign, we get a retroactive explanation of Episode I: Tassadar was sent to burn the Terran worlds not because of the Terrans themselves, but because of the Zerg. And the reason why he deployed ground troops in the “New Gettysburg” was that he wanted to spare the Terrans. Again, things were happening in the background that become significant later. On one hand, Tassadar's intervention essentially helped Mengsk, as he could now sell himself as a protector against both the Zerg and Protoss. On the other, it ensured Kerrigan's infestation. Lastly, it forced Tassadar to go to Char, as well as splitting with the Conclave.
This same level of subtle complexity can be found in Brood War as well. In Episode IV, we encounter the UED, and while it’s a superficial clash, it does introduce the story’s new villains. But more importantly, we have that Raynor and Fenix stay behind on Aiur, which means that Kerrigan is able to get a hold of them while Zeratul and the rest are busy on Shakurus. She might have done so even if Raynor and Fenix had come to Shakuras, but there are hints that Kerrigan contacting people separately is a key to her victory. All of this remains unexplained until Episode VI, of course, where we learn that Kerrigan reached out to Raynor and Fenix to help her kidnap Mengsk (which happens in V).
This level of complexity doesn’t exist in SC2. Yes, we know what the Zerg are up to in WOL (collecting artifacts), but what about the Protoss? The truth is, apart from a few glimpses of the Daelaam, we don’t really encounter Artanis until LOTV! Yes, Selendis shows up at one point, and Zeratul has a small, but very significant arc, but other than that, there’s really not much hint that a lot of things are happening in the background.
We later learn that the Protoss have been building up their forces to invade Aiur, but that is not that interesting. It's not good storytelling either. After all, this renders one of the game’s main three races passive until the last third of the story, when they should be an active participant from the get-go (firstly because of Kerrigan returning, and secondly because of Amon’s ascension). While I do understand that Zeratul can only be at one time in one place, I find it hard to believe that he chose to contact the Protoss last. He should have made them an active presence much earlier. And don’t give me that “exile” crap as an excuse for why he waited either. Zeratul’s exile was self-imposed after he killed Raszagal, and there’s never been any hints that his reveal of Aiur to the Overmind cost him any allies among the Khalai. So there's little reason for why he should have waited until LOTV to contact Artanis (the real reason is that Zeratul is contacting people according to the race structure of the story).
Overall, the complexity of SC2 is a shadow of the original game, with Blizzard not seeming to have much of a plan for the full story, nor a solution of what to do with the Protoss until they arrived in LOTV. Compare that the original game, where they were only seen for one mission in Episode I and yet were a terrible presence, as they fuckin’ burned entire planets from space.
How the Tal’darim Reveal Blizzard’s Lack of Care for Story
Speaking of the Protoss: let’s discuss the Tal’darim. Originally introduced in the Dark Templar Trilogy, this faction has changed more than probably any other in the story, and not for good. In WOL, they are tribe that blatantly only exists to give Raynor some Protoss to fight against (he is usually their friend, after all). That is not bad in itself (all races should fight each other in all campaigns, in my opinion). The problem is rather that they are introduced as fanatics that worship the Xel’Naga, and essentially guard the artifacts that Raynor needs.
Here’s the thing: Raynor is gathering these artifacts on behalf of Tychus, who is gathering them on behalf on Moebius, which is run by Narud (who is secretly Duran, as well as a partner-in-crime with Arcturus Mengsk), and owned by Valerian Mengsk (who does not work with his father). Phew! Yeah, that never made much sense to me. Now consider this: in HOTS, we learn that the Tal’darim are Narud’s elite force, which begs the consider: why didn’t they just give them to them?
This is, obviously, a gigantic plot hole. Maybe there is some explanation of this somewhere, but I doubt it’s anything but convoluted, which is a good sign that Blizzard really didn’t have control of their own story. Now, I personally don’t mind plot holes that much, as I think stories can survive with them. However, when there are too many of them and they grow too large, there seems to be a larger problem: the storytellers aren’t really involved in the story, nor do they know it well enough (never a good sign).
There are, as many have pointed out before me, other plot holes too. How, for instance, could Mengsk order Tychus to kill Kerrigan after she was deinfested if he didn’t know that she would be deinfested (nor that Raynor was going to Char in the first place)? How could Tychus be the pilot in the Thor while also being a mole for Mengsk? I’m sure there are more, but I wanted to specifically focus on the Tal’darim because they exemplify just how little Blizzard had planned ahead. What’s worse is that, once Blizzard realized the Tal’darim weren’t as well-received as they thought they would be (which is an forgivable sin), they simply changed them, continuity be damned (which is less forgivable).
I will admit I very much like what Blizzard did with the Tal’darim in LOTV, not only fleshing them out, but also explaining them better, as well as giving them a show-stealing character in Alarak. What I do mind is how Blizzard has such a casual approach to the story that they’re unable to plan ahead, and simply don’t care whether anything makes sense or not when they make changes. Changing the Tal’darim isn’t that big a deal in itself, but it’s one symptom out of many, all of which exist because Blizzard didn’t invest enough care into the story. And that is problematic.
Conclusion
The story of SC2 has a lot of problems, but I’ve argued that most of them stems from two core issues: forcing a shift in the story’s worldview from cynicism to idealism, and not putting in the proper legwork into creating a solid story. The first problem explains the game's clichéd dialogue and the romance-based storyline between Kerrigan and Raynor (whenever has a male audience asked for that?), while the latter explains the plot holes and the inconsistencies. Both of them explain the many retcons. The worldview change explains the whitewashing of Kerrigan, as well as the prophecy storyline, while the lack of complexity explain some of the smaller retcons, most significantly the Tal’darim.
I liked WoL the most. HotS had colorful characters on the outside but on the inside they where empty. I found LoV the worst story of them all.
I get what blizzard was trying to do. They had pressure of starcraft 1 and had to come up with this amazing story. So what do you do? You create this big creature, bigger then life,bigger than the whole universe. Instead of making small scaled story, relatable ,simple characters they go for the BIG EXPLOSIONS. Big prophecy. The whole universe is at stake!
Who can relate to amon? A creature old as time. Who spews cryptic nonsense all the time. Amon: darkness is coming. LOL.
I think they need to change everything. The writers,new story,new characters. Start fresh. They grow really stale. Like karax,swann and abathur are basically the same characters. Just there to notify you of new abilitys,research.
Also why not mix it up with the story? Do people need 16 missions of 1 race? Why not have it in acts.
Act 1. Protoss mission, zerg mission,terran. Each mission a different race with interconnected story.
I also think that Starcraft 1 was as 90's edgy as it gets (Not to mention the music, Terran 1 is one of the music tracks of the 90's period), but the refusal to continue this direction and instead go for a more mainstream, not quite rated Mature storyline ruined things in the end.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
A new start was needed, and by that I mean a considerable time gap.
Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and how it taking place 30 years after Return of the Jedi allowed for some form of nostalgia, yet still gave new characters (and thus new plots) a chance to develop.
Compare this to Starcraft II, which took place a mere four years after the first game. Too much conflict between old and new.
Last but not least, Blizzard has never been good at telling a very detailed story. They've always been a gameplay-first company.
In most of their games you have some mission briefings and some dialogue during missions, and that's about it. But Wings of Liberty had a proper storymode (Hyperion).
Don't get me wrong, I like the chatter with all the NPCs, but it made players think that the story had to be taken more seriously. The story is considered more integral to the game experience.
Compare this to Starcraft 1 in which you could just skip all the briefings and start the mission immediately. You could pay attention to the story, but it wasn't forced upon the players.
Players had to spend more time thinking about the plot, which is good if the plot is good, and bad if it isn't. It either paid off big time for people who like the story, or further increases the frustration with the bad writing.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
The "WOW-is-everything" theory is one I don't like to subscribe to, and yet it does seem to make a queer kind of sense. It's not just StarCraft either, Diablo III wasn't as dark as II. That's another thing the fans pointed out that Blizzard seemed oblivious too, which might explain why Reaper of Souls was so grimdark and more in line with the Diablo tone. Even WarCraft itself was affected. It was always the lightest of the franchises, but the first two games were darker than those that followed (though I suppose that began with WC3, which in many ways set the stage for WOW).
I'd argue that the StarCraft world is darker than Diablo, though. Diablo obviously a lot more hellish imagery, but it is a more traditional good-versus-evil tale, with little in terms (Diablo III seemed to have tried to redemy that by using asshole angels, but I'm not sure they pulled it off). StarCraft has more greys, and the bad guys win even more.
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
Maybe. Certainly, a lot of interesting characters had been killed off. But I think it would have been possible to still tell a great story.
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Introduction
It’s now been 7 years since StarCraft 2 was released. In that time, we’ve had one game, two expansion packs, as well as a DLC that seems to have wrapped up the story (for the time being, anyway). It took even longer—a whopping 12 years—for Blizzard to follow up Brood War with a sequel. In the meantime, they released a spiritual sequel (WarCraft 3) as well what would become their most popular game (World of WarCraft).
Though Wings of Liberty was met with critical acclaim in 2010, there were few who would defend its story (I should know, as I frequented the forums quite a bit in those days, and I rarely saw a positive review). Heart of the Swarm came out in 2013, doing little to remedy the damage, while Legacy of the Void came out in 2015, and is generally seen as having the best story.
I was one of the few who didn’t much mind the story of WOL. I didn’t necessarily disagree with all the arguments that were made against it, but I enjoyed the game, and felt a need to be honest about my feelings. However, with the release of HOTS, I finally succumbed to the band wagon, realizing that the story I wanted wasn’t the one I had gotten. I had expected the dark middle chapter, but got a story that doubled down on WOL’s most ludicrious parts. In fact, I would argue that the damage HOTS did was so large, that it retroactively reduced the quality of WOL in my eyes.
Like others, I share the opinion that LOTV is the best of the bunch. Its story is more engaging than the last two, and it is a sort-of-fitting coda to the trilogy. However, I suspect the reason I say this is because by the time LOTV was released, I had settled with the fact that Blizzard wasn’t going to change their tune. That is not insignificant. LOTV ends with the very “all races team up to fight the ultimate evil” plot point that everyone was fearing, but because we had been given five years to grapple with the fact that there was no way around it, enjoying it for what it was becoming easier.
Despite that, there is no point denying that Blizzard took their shot at the story and missed. This doesn’t even seem a case of majority opinion overwhelming the minority. Hardly anyone seems that willing to defend the story. And as I’ll argue in this essay, they are justified in doing so.
My Theory on Why the Story Failed
There are many arguments on why SC2’s story failed to engage its audience: the story was clichéd and “Hollywoodized”, there was too much emphasis on prophecies, there were too many plot holes, and so on. While I don’t disagree with these arguments, I don’t think they can fully explain why the story failed. To do that, we must dig deeper, explaining how the clichés turned up in the first place, as well as why the plot holes emerged.
There are two explanations that, in my eyes, help explain most of the criticism levied at the story. The first of this is that Blizzard took a deeply cynical story and forced it to become idealistic. The second is that Blizzard simply didn’t put up enough legwork into crafting a complex story, which resulted in not only plot holes, but strange contradictions and retcons as well. More on that after the jump.
From Cynicism to Idealism
The original StarCraft is deeply cynical. In Episode I, we play as a group of rebels lead by a man who turns out to be just as bad (if not worse) than the ones we are trying to overthrow. Victory is bittersweet, because while the heroes technically succeed in their mission (to destroy the Confederacy), nothing really seems to have been won. The system hasn’t changed, Kerrigan is (presumably dead), and Raynor has gone from being a marshal to a branded criminal (as well as a man with little reason to live).
In Episode II, we play as the Zerg, who are basically pure evil, which means they actually achieve their goal (for a time being, anyway): Kerrigan comes back infested, and the Overmind’s invasion of Aiur is successful (as we complete the campaign with its body fully integrated into the surface of the Protoss homeworld). Finally, in episode III, we play as the Protoss, who do defeat the Overmind, but not after a bitter civil war that nearly destroys them all. To pour salt in the wound, the victory turns out to be bittersweet, as the Protoss must flee Aiur from the remaining feral Zerg.
Things become even worse in Brood War, in ways I don’t I need to repeat. It’s a story populated by heroes that are hopelessly outmatched by the villains, time and time again. Even before Kerrigan wins at the end of the game, the UED—another foe—gets to have their victory too. That’s two villain factions winning for one hero faction winning (the Protoss does actually succeed in reclaiming Shakurs in Episode IV, though obviously not without some losses).
The story of StarCraft is deeply cynical, and the story of its sequel is not. Now, it should be mentioned there is nothing inherently superior about cynicism than idealism. The point that I’m trying to make is not that SC2 crashed because of idealism, but rather because it changed the core worldview of the story, and for no good discernable reason. Chris Metzen has claimed he was an angrier man back in the 90s than he is now, which explains why the worldview of the story changed, though not why it had to.
It is possible to create a story that starts out dark and then becomes lighter. It is, after all, the standard recipe for storytelling. First, there must be a conflict, and only after can the heroes succeed. But the change from cynicism to idealism is too abrupt in StarCraft to be believable, having only occurred because the writers wanted it, and not because the characters achieved it. It is telling that the change occurs between the first and second game too. Already from the get-go, SC2 was a different beast than its predecessor.
It didn’t seem so, though. When the story of WOL begins, everything looks incredibly hopeless: Raynor is fighting a seemingly unwinnable fight against Arcturus Mengsk, and only after three missions, Kerrigan arrives once more, threatening to “finish the job”. True, there is a short moment of Raynor gazing longingly at a picture of Kerrigan (a hint of where the story will go), but apart from that, the beginning of WOL’s story doesn’t much contradict where BW left off.
In fact, part of the reason I think I responded so well to WOL (despite its many shortcomings), is that, for the most part, it fits the original game’s cynical worldview. Raynor is an alchoholic who has given up hope, the colonists on Agria are being ignored by the Dominion, and Raynor’s new allies—Tychus and Tosh, specifically—are a traitor criminal and an unstable soldier who only wants defeat Mengsk and have no hope that a positive change is possible (Dr. Hanson is an exception, though her becoming infested is obviously not very idealistic).
It is really only when the larger story starts to creep in that the problems begin to emerge. Yes, I could make some points about how the non-linear storytelling all but killed the pacing of the second act, but that is only a minor complaint. The major issue is still the direction the writers decided to go with Kerrigan. Now, there are two problems here. The first is that Blizzard decided that Raynor loves Kerrigan and wants to save her instead of killing her, which totally negates their last encounter in Brood War (True Colors, to be more specific). The second is that Kerrigan is now destined to be a savior. Now, that could have been a great source of dramatic tension. After all, the trope where the enemy is the key to victory is what Blizzard did in Episode III with the Dark Templar. But Blizzard squanders the potential of this opportunity completely, by essentially whitewashing Kerrigan. Instead of being a necessary evil, Kerrigan is just... forgiven.
There are major problems with this. While I agree that Kerrigan and the Queen of Blades have never been the same person (the change in personality in Episode II is too strong and abrupt for that), there is something deeply troubling with Blizzard not only forgetting how many Kerrigan have killed, but also that one of them (Fenix) was a dear friend to Raynor. In fact, this is something practically everyone who played the campaign managed to notice, while Blizzard didn’t. This point is proven when Raynor finally mentions Fenix in HOTS, no doubt because Blizzard read the criticism of WOL and realized their error only too late.
There is nothing wrong with changing past errors. After all, this sort of flexibility is one of the reasons LOTV is the best part of the trilogy. The problem is that these errors occur because Blizzard essentially forced a change in worldview in the story. By essentially wanting the story to be idealistic, Blizzard has to ignore common logic, meaning Raynor not only goes from wanting to kill Kerrigan to kiss her, but casually forgets the death of his friend in the process. It’s not that Blizzard doesn’t understand Raynor, it’s just that they want him to be someone he’s not.
There are other examples in the story that shows how the changed worldview has dire consequences (the Protoss being more united than ever is one of them), but this is the most significant. The whitewashing of Kerrigan ripples out throughout the rest of the story, with HOTS becoming her redemption arc, and LOTV becoming what we were essentially promised in the first place: the three races uniting together against a common enemy to defeat Amon, with Kerrigan dealing the final blow.
A Decline in Complexity
In this second part of the article, I will argue that SC2 is a less complex game than its predecessor, not necessarily in terms of thematic depth, but rather in the structure of the story. I argue that Blizzard put a lot of thought into small details in the first game, and less so in the sequel, and that this had an impact on the quality of the story.
The Problem With Blizzard’s RTS Story Structure
One of the hardest things about telling a campaign in a Blizzard RTS is their one-race-at-a-time structure. Now, it’s not hard to see why they do it this way. After all, changing perspectives mid-story has a serious impact on the gameplay, as we have to begin to learn a new race just as we started to get the hang of another (essentially creating the longest training arc ever, instead of splitting them into pieces). It’s also more natural for non-interactive stories to have changing perspectives. Games (particularly ones where you control entire races, and not just single characters) require a different kind of immersion, one where the focus is sharper. In other words: doing one race at the time is probably the optimal choice.
However, there is an inherent flaw in this design, which is that, while events in one part of the story is happening, other events are happening in the background. And by constraining the player’s perspective, we either have to be given hints of the background events, or we have to retroactively explain them at a later point. Both of these alternatives are fickle. Giving proper hints without intruding on the focus is difficult, and explaining stuff that has already happened often just ends up being clunky, and with the pacing practically dying in the process as the player is bogged down in exposition.
Despite this, the original SC handles the problems of this structure rather well. In fact, what many people forget, is how many of the story’s key moments happens off-stage. Case-in-point: the psi emitters. In Episode I, we are told these devices have the power to attract Zerg, something Mengsk exploits for his own gain. However, there are hints that this is not quite a precise explanation. In Episode II we learn (though never told out right) that the psi emitters don’t force the Zerg’s movement, but rather attracts them because the Overmind is interested in the psionic power of Terrans. Once they gain control of Kerrigan, the Zerg leave the Terran worlds for Char, as their mission is complete. This is a very subtle point that isn’t really explained, probably because the Overmind has no motive to tell us why we had to go to the Terran worlds after we left them.
A lot of people misunderstand this point, still believing the psi emitters are capable of steering Zerg all right (if they did, it’s a wonder they weren’t used even more). Even Blizzard themselves misunderstand it, as evidenced in the Brood War mission “Reign of Fire”, as well as the “Nova: Covert Ops” campaign. What is important to understand here, is that things are happening in the background of one story that have important ramifications in another. Whereas we in Episode I think the psi emitters are a device to attract Zerg, we learn in Episode II that the truth is more complex.
There is more. After Kerrigan’s infestation, she calls out to Mengsk and Raynor, with the former sending Duke, and the latter going himself. On the surface, this looks to be a superficial detail, seemingly existing only to give Kerrigan some enemies to fight on Char. And while the arrival of Duke really does just serve that point, the arrival of Raynor is more important. After all, if Raynor isn’t called to Char, he doesn’t meet Tassadar, and therefore doesn’t fight alongside them in the final mission on Aiur. In other words: if Kerrigan hadn’t called out to Raynor, the Overmind might not have been defeated, and Raynor might never have become an ally of the Protoss. Significant, indeed.
In the Protoss campaign, we get a retroactive explanation of Episode I: Tassadar was sent to burn the Terran worlds not because of the Terrans themselves, but because of the Zerg. And the reason why he deployed ground troops in the “New Gettysburg” was that he wanted to spare the Terrans. Again, things were happening in the background that become significant later. On one hand, Tassadar's intervention essentially helped Mengsk, as he could now sell himself as a protector against both the Zerg and Protoss. On the other, it ensured Kerrigan's infestation. Lastly, it forced Tassadar to go to Char, as well as splitting with the Conclave.
This same level of subtle complexity can be found in Brood War as well. In Episode IV, we encounter the UED, and while it’s a superficial clash, it does introduce the story’s new villains. But more importantly, we have that Raynor and Fenix stay behind on Aiur, which means that Kerrigan is able to get a hold of them while Zeratul and the rest are busy on Shakurus. She might have done so even if Raynor and Fenix had come to Shakuras, but there are hints that Kerrigan contacting people separately is a key to her victory. All of this remains unexplained until Episode VI, of course, where we learn that Kerrigan reached out to Raynor and Fenix to help her kidnap Mengsk (which happens in V).
This level of complexity doesn’t exist in SC2. Yes, we know what the Zerg are up to in WOL (collecting artifacts), but what about the Protoss? The truth is, apart from a few glimpses of the Daelaam, we don’t really encounter Artanis until LOTV! Yes, Selendis shows up at one point, and Zeratul has a small, but very significant arc, but other than that, there’s really not much hint that a lot of things are happening in the background.
We later learn that the Protoss have been building up their forces to invade Aiur, but that is not that interesting. It's not good storytelling either. After all, this renders one of the game’s main three races passive until the last third of the story, when they should be an active participant from the get-go (firstly because of Kerrigan returning, and secondly because of Amon’s ascension). While I do understand that Zeratul can only be at one time in one place, I find it hard to believe that he chose to contact the Protoss last. He should have made them an active presence much earlier. And don’t give me that “exile” crap as an excuse for why he waited either. Zeratul’s exile was self-imposed after he killed Raszagal, and there’s never been any hints that his reveal of Aiur to the Overmind cost him any allies among the Khalai. So there's little reason for why he should have waited until LOTV to contact Artanis (the real reason is that Zeratul is contacting people according to the race structure of the story).
Overall, the complexity of SC2 is a shadow of the original game, with Blizzard not seeming to have much of a plan for the full story, nor a solution of what to do with the Protoss until they arrived in LOTV. Compare that the original game, where they were only seen for one mission in Episode I and yet were a terrible presence, as they fuckin’ burned entire planets from space.
How the Tal’darim Reveal Blizzard’s Lack of Care for Story
Speaking of the Protoss: let’s discuss the Tal’darim. Originally introduced in the Dark Templar Trilogy, this faction has changed more than probably any other in the story, and not for good. In WOL, they are tribe that blatantly only exists to give Raynor some Protoss to fight against (he is usually their friend, after all). That is not bad in itself (all races should fight each other in all campaigns, in my opinion). The problem is rather that they are introduced as fanatics that worship the Xel’Naga, and essentially guard the artifacts that Raynor needs.
Here’s the thing: Raynor is gathering these artifacts on behalf of Tychus, who is gathering them on behalf on Moebius, which is run by Narud (who is secretly Duran, as well as a partner-in-crime with Arcturus Mengsk), and owned by Valerian Mengsk (who does not work with his father). Phew! Yeah, that never made much sense to me. Now consider this: in HOTS, we learn that the Tal’darim are Narud’s elite force, which begs the consider: why didn’t they just give them to them?
This is, obviously, a gigantic plot hole. Maybe there is some explanation of this somewhere, but I doubt it’s anything but convoluted, which is a good sign that Blizzard really didn’t have control of their own story. Now, I personally don’t mind plot holes that much, as I think stories can survive with them. However, when there are too many of them and they grow too large, there seems to be a larger problem: the storytellers aren’t really involved in the story, nor do they know it well enough (never a good sign).
There are, as many have pointed out before me, other plot holes too. How, for instance, could Mengsk order Tychus to kill Kerrigan after she was deinfested if he didn’t know that she would be deinfested (nor that Raynor was going to Char in the first place)? How could Tychus be the pilot in the Thor while also being a mole for Mengsk? I’m sure there are more, but I wanted to specifically focus on the Tal’darim because they exemplify just how little Blizzard had planned ahead. What’s worse is that, once Blizzard realized the Tal’darim weren’t as well-received as they thought they would be (which is an forgivable sin), they simply changed them, continuity be damned (which is less forgivable).
I will admit I very much like what Blizzard did with the Tal’darim in LOTV, not only fleshing them out, but also explaining them better, as well as giving them a show-stealing character in Alarak. What I do mind is how Blizzard has such a casual approach to the story that they’re unable to plan ahead, and simply don’t care whether anything makes sense or not when they make changes. Changing the Tal’darim isn’t that big a deal in itself, but it’s one symptom out of many, all of which exist because Blizzard didn’t invest enough care into the story. And that is problematic.
Conclusion
The story of SC2 has a lot of problems, but I’ve argued that most of them stems from two core issues: forcing a shift in the story’s worldview from cynicism to idealism, and not putting in the proper legwork into creating a solid story. The first problem explains the game's clichéd dialogue and the romance-based storyline between Kerrigan and Raynor (whenever has a male audience asked for that?), while the latter explains the plot holes and the inconsistencies. Both of them explain the many retcons. The worldview change explains the whitewashing of Kerrigan, as well as the prophecy storyline, while the lack of complexity explain some of the smaller retcons, most significantly the Tal’darim.
Wings of Liberty was great. Then Heart of the Swarm infests Kerrigan SECOND time. Even killing Kerrigan and creating new Overmind is better idea.
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ModeratorsWarcraft also had several reimaginings of plot devices. Sargaras for example.
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I liked WoL the most. HotS had colorful characters on the outside but on the inside they where empty. I found LoV the worst story of them all.
I get what blizzard was trying to do. They had pressure of starcraft 1 and had to come up with this amazing story. So what do you do? You create this big creature, bigger then life,bigger than the whole universe. Instead of making small scaled story, relatable ,simple characters they go for the BIG EXPLOSIONS. Big prophecy. The whole universe is at stake!
Who can relate to amon? A creature old as time. Who spews cryptic nonsense all the time. Amon: darkness is coming. LOL.
I think they need to change everything. The writers,new story,new characters. Start fresh. They grow really stale. Like karax,swann and abathur are basically the same characters. Just there to notify you of new abilitys,research.
Also why not mix it up with the story? Do people need 16 missions of 1 race? Why not have it in acts.
Act 1. Protoss mission, zerg mission,terran. Each mission a different race with interconnected story.
A very well-written piece!
I also think that Starcraft 1 was as 90's edgy as it gets (Not to mention the music, Terran 1 is one of the music tracks of the 90's period), but the refusal to continue this direction and instead go for a more mainstream, not quite rated Mature storyline ruined things in the end.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
A new start was needed, and by that I mean a considerable time gap.
Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and how it taking place 30 years after Return of the Jedi allowed for some form of nostalgia, yet still gave new characters (and thus new plots) a chance to develop.
Compare this to Starcraft II, which took place a mere four years after the first game. Too much conflict between old and new.
Last but not least, Blizzard has never been good at telling a very detailed story. They've always been a gameplay-first company.
In most of their games you have some mission briefings and some dialogue during missions, and that's about it. But Wings of Liberty had a proper storymode (Hyperion).
Don't get me wrong, I like the chatter with all the NPCs, but it made players think that the story had to be taken more seriously. The story is considered more integral to the game experience.
Compare this to Starcraft 1 in which you could just skip all the briefings and start the mission immediately. You could pay attention to the story, but it wasn't forced upon the players.
Players had to spend more time thinking about the plot, which is good if the plot is good, and bad if it isn't. It either paid off big time for people who like the story, or further increases the frustration with the bad writing.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
The "WOW-is-everything" theory is one I don't like to subscribe to, and yet it does seem to make a queer kind of sense. It's not just StarCraft either, Diablo III wasn't as dark as II. That's another thing the fans pointed out that Blizzard seemed oblivious too, which might explain why Reaper of Souls was so grimdark and more in line with the Diablo tone. Even WarCraft itself was affected. It was always the lightest of the franchises, but the first two games were darker than those that followed (though I suppose that began with WC3, which in many ways set the stage for WOW).
I'd argue that the StarCraft world is darker than Diablo, though. Diablo obviously a lot more hellish imagery, but it is a more traditional good-versus-evil tale, with little in terms (Diablo III seemed to have tried to redemy that by using asshole angels, but I'm not sure they pulled it off). StarCraft has more greys, and the bad guys win even more.
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
Maybe. Certainly, a lot of interesting characters had been killed off. But I think it would have been possible to still tell a great story.
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ModeratorsIn the original SC I liked the plot twist of Mensk betraying Raynor and Kerrigan to usurp power.
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You should submit this to actual gaming blogs; it's a great freelance piece that you could try making some meager $$ for.
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