Starcraft 2: Odyssey Campaign
-- ALERTS --
The download link shown to the right of this is only for the most recent upload. Click on the file tab above this to view the download for both Acts.
Introduction
Odyssey is my first attempt at creating a Starcraft 2 project consisting of a multi-act campaign set in the Kardyan Quadrant... far away from the Koprulu Sector. Played from the Terran point of view of Captain Jared Harsh of the Marine Ground Forces: Hell's Rejects, Act I focuses on his struggles throughout the battle-scorned planet Duros III. Act II, on the other hand, is a direct sequel delving deeper into the Kardyan Quadrant and events started in the previous act.
Featuring high-quality terraining with some decent writing accompanying, Odyssey hopes to push forward the storytelling capabilities of a custom campaign with its long-length cutscenes and additional lore to the Starcraft universe. As storytelling alone won't make a videogame, the gameplay, despite not being the true focus, can still present fresh mechanics and unique situations.
Both Acts are comprised of 14 missions each.
How to Install and Play
- Locate the Maps folder inside your Starcraft II installation directory and create within it a folder named Odyssey.
- Place all the missions and launcher files inside it.
- Initiate the Starcraft II editor and then load the launcher file.
- On the editor go to File > Test Document.
- Follow the launcher's instructions and enjoy.
Odyssey's Russian version info at: Link here... and downloadable files at: Link here...
History of the Kardyan Quadrant
Departing from Earth, thousands of Terrans constituted the Second Exodus about ten years after the Exile of the “dissidents” who would come to crash-land on the Koprulu Sector. The members of the Second Exodus eventually arrived at the Kardyan Quadrant where they started expanding and thriving. Colonizing the Earth-like planet of Parsya and declaring it the Capital World, the quadrant became theirs. Over the decades, backwater planets and moons became increasingly aggravated with the burdening taxations employed by the Commerce Guilds of Parsya. Unable to sustain those taxations, the colonists abandoned the Parsyan Collective and settled on remote and poor systems where Parsya had no interests. There, they took the name, Exodian Clans.
The Parsyan government, shaken by the sudden loss of manpower on the outlying planets, deployed a massive funding into the Research Divisions. Such, allowed for the creation of a new artificial intelligence capable of self-learning, far more advanced than the average Adjutant. Built into manlike androids, later called Synthetics, the outlying planets were populated with them to serve as Parsya’s workforce. As their artificial minds were evolved upon with the passing generations, eventually, the Series 3 began showing signs of free-will, being capable of choosing to ignore orders given by humans. The Parsyan Collective, afraid of a possible synthetic rebellion, amassed all its military power under control of seven of the highest-ranking Admirals and Generals, unofficially named, the Steel Council. The amassed power of the Parsyan military became known as the Federation of Warfare, a force to be reckoned with. To their surprise, the Synthetics did not wish ill upon humanity and instead chose to leave Parsyan controlled space much like the Exodian Clans had done decades before. They were never heard from again. Fearing that they would one day change their minds or the possibility of an invasion by the Exodian Clans, Parsya kept expanding the Federation of Warfare and forbade the research into artificial intelligence, and even, the use of Adjutants.
As the decades went by, Parsya outgrew itself in power and economy but also in greed. The unforgivable event later named the Powering Strife led the Federation of Warfare into detaching itself from Parsya and declaring independence under command of Admiral Cassius Rourke who took the mantle of Grand Marshal. Head of the Steel Council and supreme commander of the Federation. The Parsyan Collective, aware of the threat the Federation posed, began sinking its economy into buying the loyalty of some of the Federation’s divisions and commanders and even hiring mercenary armies from the Exodian Clans. The two forces clashed and the Powering Wars lasted for five years, ending with the troubled invasion but inevitable fall of Parsya. At the Post-War Peace Treaty of 2490, it was determined that the surviving Parsyans would be restricted to their crumbled planet in agreement that the Federation could never again set foot there. As the Federation of Warfare became the unchallenged power in the Kardyan Quadrant, ten years of peace flourished.
On the 23rd of March 2500, the miners of the Planet Duros III began a rebellion against the Federation of Warfare for the deplorable conditions they were set to work on. Now, less than forty-eight hours later, the peacekeeping Battlecruisers Heimdall and Pegasus arrive at the planet with orders to restore control.
Act I - Requiem for Duros III
- Mission 1 - Hell's Rejects
- Mission 2 - Soldiers of the Federation
- Mission 3 - The Beast of Statbrough
- Mission 4 - Unwanted Guests
- Mission 5 - Clipped Wings Part 1
- Mission 6 - Clipped Wings Part 2
- Mission 7 - The Siege of Arkingston
- Mission 8 - The Federation Strikes Back
- Mission 9 - Rising Dread
- Mission 10 - Outrunning Death
- Mission 11 - What Lies Beneath
- Mission 12 - Falling From Grace
- Mission 13 - The Bigger They Are...
- Mission 14 - Limitless
Act II - The Powerian, the Queen and the Watcher
- Mission 1 - Invasion Day
- Mission 2 - The Enemy of my Enemy
- Mission 3 - On Shakier Grounds
- Mission 4 - The Frostfire Express
- Mission 5 - United We Stand
- Mission 6 - Divided We Fall
- Mission 7 - Into Darkness
- Mission 8 - The Lion's Den
- Mission 9 - Of Fire and Brimstone Part 1
- Mission 10 - Of Fire and Brimstone Part 2
- Mission 11 - Graveyard of Legends
- Mission 12 - Untamed, Unbroken, Unleashed
- Mission 13 - TBA
- Mission 14 - TBA
All the missions' showcases can be seen on Youtube by JayborinoPlays: Link here... and also, DeltronLive: Link here...
Act II Mission 13 Status: Cinematics making phase.
Screenshots
Special Thanks
To my friend Hélio for creating the Odyssey logo and tempering with the hero icons and to Marco and Vanda for putting up with me when I wouldn't shut up about the story. Also, thanks to JayborinoPlays and DeltronLive for showcasing Odyssey on their youtube channels and to everyone who enjoys this and thinks I'm bothering myself with something cool.
Lastly, a big thank you to the guys from Firestorm Project for their work and effort to translate the whole thing to Russian.
Concerning Donations
The donate button can be found around the upper right area on the top of this page. Donations are entirely optional and won't impact the development of the campaign in any way. They are only meant to serve as a show of appreciation for my work other than reviews.
Thanks for the praise. I think that the best of Act II is easily set in the last four missions still to come. I'd love to make a living developing games but companies don't really hire nobodies whose only achievement in the industry is a custom campaign.
Hey! I've heard lots of fantastic things about this campaign, and I have a few questions about it
1. What are your plans, if any, following the completion of the second act? If the parallel to SC2 goes all the way, there will be a third, and I prefer to play campaigns, especially good ones, start to finish; so if that's true I guess I'll be waiting awhile.
2. Is it a terran campaign entirely? If so, are there unit unlocks like the main campaigns? Sorry if this one is obvious, I've never played a custom campaign before and so I don't know what tools are available to developers.
1. I only work on Odyssey in my spare time and there is an Act III plotted out for years, so, this is still about 3 to 4 years away from being finished. I just lack the time and make the terrain way too detailed. I'd suggest you just give it a try to see if it gets you hooked. If it doesn't, you don't need to wait and can simply try out other campaigns. There's loads of them to explore and it's all about keeping in mind that they're done by amateurs or semi-professionals out of love to the game and not to make money.
2. Odyssey is a Terran focused campaign even though it's got three or more missions where Zerg are playable. There's no optional unlocks and what you do in a mission won't influence the next ones. It's possible but my knowledge on the editor isn't enough to know how to do stuff like that. To compensate, every mission has an optional objective which, if completed, awards an instant reward. The nature of that reward changes considerably from mission to mission and in some missions that reward is the coolest aspect to them like being able to disable the artificial gravity on a space platform.
Thanks for the interest and welcome to the world of custom campaigns.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey:
It's not that hard to make unlockable/transferable stuff between mission.
The issue is that it's very hard to balance around this - you have to make transferable bonuses quite tiny or it may lead to unbalanced state in some missions otherwise, where player who collected all the bonuses will have a cakewalk and someone who didn't collect anything will struggle immensely.
So it should be either done well or not done at all, and given it's 14 missions per act I don't see how it could be done in a balanced way.
Im in mad love with the style, the direct parallel to the Koprulu sector and the pacing and story telling style! Seriously can't wait for the rest of the missions to be released, if they get released that is. I hope I can see closure to this fantastic journey, or rather Odyssey. You created a new universe with normal SC II assets and brought it to live, made it believable. Thank you, Luis Rocha.
From the moment I started the campaign, I wanted to make it feel like it could actually be a sci-fi TV series (Acts are seasons and missions are episodes), hence why it looks more grounded/believable than usual. Thanks for the praise.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey:
Seriously thats exactly the kinda thing I've been looking for... something like an epic SciFi TV show that I can experience directly by gaming. This project is a masterpiece, and I've only played 2 maps yet..reminds me a lot of The Antioch Chronicles, but with Terrans in the focus.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey:
Its simply put, amazing. Jared Harsh is a blast, the likelihood of Raynor fits him better, than Raynor himself. Meeks is a comedian through and through, that guy put a smile on my face every no and then with his witty remarks. I also like, how the UEC had a truly terrifying arrival, they almost took the show, primed to see how their campaign fares, in comparison to the UED. Almost want them to win. Luis! I need - MORE! Wish it would never end, Odyssey also feels so damn complete, even without the damn Protoss, lovely.
Hey! I was really excited to try out the map after reading about it from the New patch.
When I get to the overview of missions and choose the first one and click start it loads for a few Seconds before it comes a "unable to open map" Notification.
in the sc2 editor im logged in, but i do get this error:
[7/30/2020 5:38:25 PM] Warning: XML: GameData\ActorData.xml(1,1) : m_comment == nullptr Source: Campaigns/SwarmStory.SC2Campaign/
Any suggestions?
So, you're trying to run it through the editor. You only need to log in once to validate it. If you're running it through the launcher, you need to make sure it's properly set up. The top of this page has the instructions. Follow them to the letter.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey: hi thanks for this amazing campaign but iget the same problem than hognek but i log in and nothing change can you help me please ?
In reply to hunter_28_:
You're welcome, brother. You don't need to log in at any point unless the editor requests it to validate itself. The Unable to Open Map error means that the campaign isn't set properly. The launcher has no idea where in the computer the files are so a path needs to be predefined by me and the user needs to set it up. The instructions are at the top of this page. Something as simple as misspelling Odyssey is enough for it to not work properly. This procedure may seem complex but once understood it becomes quite simple and once done, it stays done. Make sure that you download the right language version you want (only English or Russian at the moment) and follow the instructions. If everything is done properly and the problem persists than it's something wrong with your game cause it's been working for me for years. Let me know how it goes.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey:
Hi thanks for the answer but i check my files to see if i misspelling Odyssey but everything is good and that doesn't work i set all the maps and the launcher inside of the folder name Odyssey inside of the folder name Maps but its still not working so i think im gonna to play on the game because i can't set up in the editor and i try to do it with other map and its work so i really don't understand what is wrong
In reply to hunter_28_:
Could be you don't own the Heart of the Swarm campaign, thus cannot access that dependency.
If that is true, I recommend to CooperHawkesOdyssey that the launcher be updated to only require the Wings of Liberty dependencies. As far as I know, launching maps that require a dependency you don't own through a different map isn't an issue. I say that tentatively, as that's what Mass Recall supposedly does with it's launcher.
In reply to hunter_28_:
Found possible solution, at least it fixed the same issue for me.
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/dependency-data-could-not-be-loaded/102/2
I noticed that when playing using the new custom campaign menu, I’m able to use the same console I chose for multiplayer. Is there an option that would let me use the unit skins I select from the collection menu? I would love to see agent Meeks with an Eidolon suit.
What I mean is that the technology developed in the Kardyan sector doesn’t need to look exactly like the one in the koprulu sector.
There is also a lot of almost unused or campaign exclusive models/skins that would be nice to see in your custom campaign; for example the dominion kill team camo medic or the mercenary medivac. I tried to do it by loading a mod file, with the changed models, into your maps (for personal use only), and played the first seven missions, but I don’ know if it would affect the campaign triggers and new abilities.
When I started the campaign back in 2013 I did intend to have the technology differ from the Koprulu Sector but I had zero idea how to create upgrades in the editor and the game didn't have as many skins as it does now. So, the units would be the same, pretty much just different names. Considering that even in Brood War the Dominion and UED have very much the same tech despite close to 300 years of being separated, I ended giving up on that and just make a campaign. Now, the game does have more skins to make use of and you'll see them further into the campaign more and more. I decided to try to keep those skins available to stand out characters rather than simple playable units. I don't think they affect triggers and abilities but I'd advise not to mess with them. Several characters will change their suits (skins) throughout the campaign based on what happens in the storyline. If you're enjoying Odyssey nonetheless and only played the first seven, good news, the rest is much better.
Have you seen this, man?!
https://starcraft2.com/en-us/news/23463124?blzcmp=app
Blizzard mentioned ONE custom campaign out of dozens as an example, to appreciate the community scene, and they have chosen YOU.
I'm very happy for you, Luis!
They did give me an heads-up on all of this so I definitely was aware of it coming but do keep in mind that Odyssey isn't in the trailer simply because of quality. One of the biggest reasons is because, of all the best campaigns, it was the only one already in the Arcade ready to go. Still, indeed very happy to see it in an official trailer.
In reply to CooperHawkesOdyssey:
I understand, and also I like many other great user-made campaigns and wish more of them were mentioned - Annihilation, MR, Quagmire, Antioch, LifeForce and many others.
But still I'm happy that if they could mention only one, it was Odyssey.