In a recent interview with MSNBC, Blizzard's vice president of game design, Rob Pardo, revealed quite a bit about the past and future of Blizzard's anticipated hit StarCraft II.
First of all, StarCraft II will Not be released in 2007 and when it is released it will be sold in a normal box, not through an online distribution network such as steam (but both options might be available at the time) and there is no plans for any subscription based content.
The game will take place 2 years after Brood Wars' main story arc and will Not feature a fourth race. Pardo also promised that "You can certainly expect to see many of the returning characters".
When asked about the 9 years pause between the 2 sequels, Rob answered:
"Mainly because we make our decisions on what game we're going to work on from a creative standpoint. The team that worked on the original 'StarCraft' wanted to revisit the 'Warcraft' universe, and they went on to work on Warcraft III. When that game finished up [in 2002,] they were excited to go back and work on the 'StarCraft' universe".
And when asking about the tough competition in the RTS market which is crowded with strong titles such as "Command and Conquer 3", "Supreme Commander", "Company of Heroes" and "Dawn of War", he was not too humble in his answer:
"We've definitely never been shy to go into a crowded field, especially a genre that historically we've been one of the kings of. StarCraft II will distinguish itself really well through online play. We're building it to be the best competitive RTS on the market. RTSs, especially the ones you mentioned, are focused on single-player only.
We really are hoping to innovate more in the single-player [game] than we have in the past â€" we're just not releasing details about it yet. But our story and our world and our IP [that] we developed in StarCraft is superior to what we're going to be competing against. "
