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At her highest level, Kerrigan can summon powerful Zerg reinforcements. Her earliest powers include Kinetic Blast, a powerful attack that can take out units and structures at long range, and Heroic Fortitude, which grants her extra life and faster health regeneration. Kerrigan's unlockable abilities in the game's single-player campaign are a mix of passive and active skills. "There are a lot of combinations and story themes that went into these changes to make sure this felt like a Zerg campaign and not like a Terran campaign with a bunch of ooze on it." That felt just awful."įor lore and theme reasons, DNA collecting was nixed. "I don't want a bank account of Zerg Bucks somewhere in the game that will quantify how many Zerg upgrades I can purchase. "It didn't feel like you're the leader of an alien swarm," Browder explained of the change.
Starcraft 2 campaign result score upgrade#
Previously, Blizzard had players collecting hidden DNA strands in missions to upgrade Kerrigan's abilities, which Browder called "the worst idea ever," likening the scrapped collectible to "Zerg Bucks." Players can level up Kerrigan by completing missions and optional tasks during the campaign. In the updated version of the expansion, Kerrigan comes with a skill tree that unlocks as she levels up, lending Heart of the Swarm a more RPG-like structure that gives players extra flexibility in customizing how she plays. These were "kits" with special abilities and powers that players could swap in and out. In the version of Heart of the Swarm we saw 18 months ago, players could unlock Battle Focuses for Kerrigan. She'll be playable in most of the game's missions and she, like the rest of her swarm, will have the ability to upgrade her skills and powers over the course of the campaign. Kerrigan will play the role of Zerg queen and hero unit. She'll battle the Terrans, Protoss and opposing Zerg broods as she enacts revenge upon Arcturus Mengsk.
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Across 20 missions, players will control Sarah Kerrigan as she expands her brood, strengthening it through new genetic discoveries. The core of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is still intact. Blizzard has sloughed off old design decisions. Narratively, it's still familiar: Terran Ghost turned Zerg queen Sarah Kerrigan is back with her brood, seeking revenge against the Terran Dominion, traveling the universe in her Leviathan, conquering worlds.īut things have changed.
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When I last played the single-player portion of Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard's upcoming expansion to 2010's StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, it was nearly 18 months ago. Through mutation, acquisition and evolution, the insectoid collective embraces growth and change in the pursuit of galactic domination.īlizzard itself exhibits Zerg-like qualities in the design of its games, constantly adjusting, adapting, evolving and sometimes discarding the innards of its titles until - sometimes years later - it's content with the final result. The Zerg of Blizzard's StarCraft universe obsess over the genetic perfection of their species.
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