During Blizzcon we had a rare opportunity to sit down and discuss the StarCraft Universe and it’s stories with Lead Writer Brian Kindregan. Brian has been employee with Blizzard for a little over 2 years now and prior to helping shape awesome stories in the StarCraft single player game he also worked for BioWare and had some writing duties in a couple of my favorite games like Jade Empire and Mass Effect 2. Needless to say I was quite honored to be a part of this conversation and wanted to thank Brian for spending a few minutes of his time with us (and Blizzard for setting this up) to discuss the story in StarCraft 2.
One of the complaints a lot of people had with StarCraft was the revelation of the Overmind not being such a terrible space beast to begin with. A lot of comparisons have actually been between the Zerg and Warcraft’s Horde now. Do you feel that is at all viable?
Actually I don’t and it’s tricky to answer this because of the big background story we have coming up. All I can say is that they are very different entities and aspects. So I definitely understand the feelings of the community about the revelation of the Overmind. I even overheard the word retcon used which is not correct. There is no reinvention of who Overmind is. We are all learning more about what was going on in the background. There is still more to learn. I can say this is not an attempt to make the zerg noble or anything like that. It’s just the beginnings of the revelation about the fact that there were a lot of background forces at work. Basically the races and factions of Starcraft have a lot more going on than what people might think. In fact, I would say that there is a much more complex and deeper and richer thing going on with them.
Back in April during a SC2 single player story press event we were at, we asked a question about what is going on with Samir Duran – when playing the game all the sudden there was this guy who’s name was Duran spelled backwards. So is there any connection between Samir Duran and Dr. Narud?
*Laughter* That is an interesting question. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say there is a connection between those 2 gentlemen. And certainly the story they are a part of isn’t only not done but is just now getting started. I think it’s very exciting that there is stuff that has been in the works for the background of this universe for many years. Many years in our world, and many many years in their universe that are really going to start to unfold now. And really, it’s all really going to be coming to the forefront in the next few years.
During the Wings of Liberty, we saw a lot going on with the Dominion, what’s going on with the Kel-Morian Combine and the Umojan Protectorate; and also what was there anything going on with the short story about them stealing the prototype of Odin?
With that story specifically that is one of the things that is out there in the universe that we might leave something out of that later, or weave it back in the main line. It was more to illustrate this unit that was going to be such a big part of the game.
The Kel-Morians are still reeling from the Guild War. Even before the zerg showed up the Confederacy had really kind of shattered the Kel-Morians. So they’re reduced to really a couple planets at this point. They’re not done by any means, they’re still out there and still going, but they’re not the threat that they used to be.
The Umojans are a really interesting faction, and one of my favorites. They’ve always been the underdog and underpowered. They just don’t have the sheer resources, or population that everyone else has, but what they do have is great technology. They’re smart and make the most of what they’ve got. They’re still a factor in things for sure and I can say we will see more of these Terran factions get involved as the story goes forward.
In Starcraft 2 you had one singular storyline, but you did have some branching paths where you choose sides like with Nova and Tosh and specifically at the end of these some of these characters die. So going forward with canon will you choose one path over the other?
We’ve had a discussion about that and there’s a couple ways we’d like to handle it but we have to have canon in that this is the definite choice. So what we’ve come up with is what we call the “A” choice is always canon. So in that case it would be siding with Hanson so that she is alive. Siding with Tosh and choosing on Char to take out the air platform.
However, we’re trying not to actively deny that your experience has never happened. So what we’re doing is, if we ever need to reference something, we have a canon version. But the truth is, my preference is to just avoid those topics all together so that your experience is never invalidated. So you play Wings of Liberty and you make certain choices as you go forward in the StarCraft Universe. You don’t run into anything that invalidates your previous choices.
I’m not sure if you can talk about this, but let’s say you’re playing Heart of the Swarm – does it make any checks to see what choices you had made when you were playing Wings of Liberty?
We do have that technology *laughs*
A lot of the backstory seems to be expanded through the manga and the novels – what have the writers introduced themselves and what were they told to introduce? For example the Voice in the Darkness and the Dark Void character, which came first – was it an internal decision for the writers to put in, or did the writers put it in and you guys thought it was a good idea?
Most of what you will find in the manga are one off stories that are still a part of the universe and expands our knowledge of the universe. It’s safe to say that the Voice in the Darkness and the Dark Void are two different entities. As far as Blizzard works with the authors there’s a lot of back and forth and a lot of talking. It’s not just Blizzard telling these authors “Hey, can you write a book about Nova? Thanks! See you on the other side.” And I would like there to be even more communication than that so that we could really bring the manga and the novels to be even more intertwined with the games. That way we can introduce stuff in one that pays off in the other and vice versa. that’s definitely something we are doing and want to do more of.
Since we’re at Blizzcon right now there’s a lot of focus on custom maps and custom mods in StarCraft 2 made by Blizzard and by the community. Is there any possibility that Blizzard made mods or even community made mods might become lore or canon?
We’ve discussed that. We don’t have any plans to do something like that right now, but I think it’s a great idea and I would really like to do it. It’s important to find that little side path or background in the story that is meaningful or has important events that happen, but doesn’t completely impact the main sequence of events.
When you started to really separate the single player and the multiplayer, and having units that have exclusively available in the single player – were you worried that something like that might segment the player base?
No, I wasn’t worried it would segment the player base. I mean, really, multiplayer is all about the balance; and if the balance isn’t working, then it doesn’t matter what else is going on. At the same time I didn’t feel like we wanted to limit the experience in single player. I mean, here’s a chance to really have all of these upgraded units by the end of the game; and if you teched up right and get all of these mercs, then you should be this overwhelming force of pain and agony to your enemies. It would have been a shame if we couldn’t have done all of that. Because the two have completely different strategies. I don’t think it means that one person certainly can’t enjoy them both. I don’t think it has either, I haven’t heard any great divides in the community over this.
People were speculating about Kerrigan right at the end of the campaign – is she completely “de-zerged” as it appears she still has the tentacle hair?
I can’t really comment on that other than to say that is a really interesting question. *laughs*
