Starcraft 2 Guide

Since the Starcraft 2 game was announced at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in May 2007 in South Korea, we have been eager to get to know the starcraft 2 release date. As we all know, Blizzard is usually very restrictive about giving out information about release dates before they really know anything about it, and so has it been for the Starcraft 2 release too. Initially, they just announced the game, and we are still waiting for a definite answer to the releasedate for starcraft 2.

Starcraft 2 was initially developed under the codename Medusa, and started right after the release of Warcraft 3 – The Frozen Throne in 2003. It was actually stopped for a while in 2005 because Blizzard needed all their developers for the big release of World of Warcraft. How much this actually delayed the game and the starcraft 2 release, no one knows, or at least no one will tell us. During the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in June 2008, it was said that the game was only one third finished, but we are hoping that was a typical Blizzard understatement.

Starcraft 2 will actually be released three times, because it is developed as a trilogy. This might speed up the release of Starcraft 2, since they only need one of the three storylines to be finished for the first game. We are predicting about one year between each of the three releases. The first release will focus on Terran, and is called “Wings of Liberty”. The second is the Zerg-release called “Heart of the Swarm”, while the third release, focused on Protoss, is called “Legacy of the Void”.

It is possible to sign up for a beta key for Starcraft 2 now, starting from May 2009, and it is expected to start inviting players to the beta during the summer or early fall of 2009. If this can be an indication of the Starcraft 2 release, we have to say we are expecting to see it soonest for Christmas 2009. To sign up for a beta, you need to have a Battle.net-account, and go to the “Beta Profile Settings”. There you have to give them your system specifications, and check of the “Starcraft Universe” checkbox. You are then included in the pool of potential beta testers, and the first testers will be from North America, New Zealand and Austalia. There is no information yet about when Europe and Asia will be able to join in.

When we have this information, our prediction is that the Starcraft 2 Release will be earliest January 2010, with the two other packs about one and two years later. Another World of Warcraft expansion pack might however delay one of these releases a bit.