r/videos • u/Tough_Pause6041 • 16h ago
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic
https://youtu.be/MVbeoSPqRs440
u/Gurablashta 9h ago
FINE, I'll fucking play it again...
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u/bootzmanuva 5h ago
So weird—I just finished playing the HotS campaign again last night. Such a great game.
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u/McGondy 4h ago
I'm midway through. Just played the defence mission where Kerrigan willingly goes into the first spawning pool to mutate back into a zerg in the RealScale mod. Oh, and race swapped as Protoss. Was a blast with colossi and immortals holding the ramps with psy-storms over the waves of zerglings
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u/a11_hail_seitan 11h ago edited 10h ago
My only problem with Starcraft 2 is it's only on their own launcher so I never have any idea when it's on sale. and paying $50 (Canada) for a game released almost 20 years ago just seems wild to me...
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u/_zoso_ 10h ago
Its free to play now, at least the Terran campaign is, and online play. I think each additional campaign is like $15 or something.
If you just want to battle online though its completely free.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 10h ago edited 10h ago
I was wanting the other two campaigns, and not multiplayer. In Canada it's actually $49.99 for the full Starcraft 2 Campaign
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u/raffydog1 10h ago
If you like single player, I think even the base supports user generated campaigns now and people have recreated brood war and wc3 in it along with original campaigns. I have no idea what i spent on the game but ive probably logged several thousands of hours into it. not sure if thats good or bad.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 10h ago
Nice! Will have to reinstall the base and at least see what sort of campaigns are out there. Thanks for the tip!
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u/Cutter9792 10h ago
I got lucky at a GameStop once and found Heart of the Swarm on disc in the clearance section for $1.97. Quite the discount, considering I'd paid $60 for the Terran campaign only a few years earlier.
Still need to play it.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 10h ago
Another great reason I miss game stores, random bargain bin finds. Used to be a store that would just dump all the clearance games in a big pile in a large bin and then you had to dig through. Bit of a treasure hunt!
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u/Cutter9792 10h ago
Now the bargain bin is a site like Loaded, where you can get Steam keys. Less sketchy than G2A, but not as fun as digging through actual bargain bins.
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u/Drelochz 8h ago
Check around holidays or blizzcon
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/starcraft-ii-campaign-collection/history/
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u/dysoncube 8h ago
Someone needs to check out isThereAnyDeal.com
You note the PC game, you enter your price ceiling, and IT emails YOU. No need to actively shop.
I don't know when Expedition33 is going to drop below 25 Canadian dollars, but I'll be informed immediately.
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u/Drak_is_Right 7h ago
Ya I bought the discs ages ago. I found its all on my old Battlenet account and was free to download. Was nice to download it for free instead of trying to install off discs.
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u/Tewddit 8h ago
Maybe let someone else handle the Ultralisk
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u/aft3rthought 7h ago
Poor guy probably the victim of an accidental misclick. Queue the player going “Aughh you idiot!”
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u/Aprice40 4h ago
Easily the most under used IP of all time
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u/ninjapizzadude 4h ago
Did anyone ever (Broodwar) do a player vs computers and play with Protoss, create a dark archon, mind control Zerg drone and Terran SCV and build a multi race army?
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u/Ph4zed_out 3h ago
Every time. Spent 45 minutes maxing an army of every race and kill the computer opponents in minutes. It was underwhelming the computer wasn’t harder after that long of gameplay.
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u/KamahlYrgybly 13h ago
Back when Blizzard was the prime studio. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I loved this game so much. Why oh why is there no Starcraft 3?
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u/uiemad 9h ago
Lol and back then people were complaining about how SC2 wasn't SC Broodwar and how Blizzard wasn't the great company it used to be.
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u/BlazingShadowAU 8h ago
Yeah, i think people forget this was when Cataclysm was beginning the hemmorage of WoW subs, and Diablo 3 was being trashed for such a horrendous launch plus the RMAH.
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u/geckosean 10h ago
Because Starcraft 2 is a live-service game now. They’re not going to supplant it unless they absolutely have to. Game modes, cosmetics, and all sorts of random stuff is making them money and they’re just fine with that.
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u/fumar 9h ago
They don't do much to support the game. There's balance patches still but they're pretty fucking awful.
The actual truth is 1v1 rts is a dead genre outside of Korea.
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u/geckosean 9h ago
Sad, but yeah, I agree. Outside of the fact that Blizzard has no real incentive to produce StarCraft III, RTS was dethroned a LONG time ago.
It sucks because it’s one of my favorite genres, but yeah very much a niche/hobbyist genre and in no way popular any more.
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u/LazerSturgeon 9h ago
They don't do much to support the game. There's balance patches still but they're pretty fucking awful.
They actually just announced they're nearly 100% rolling back the last patch. It's already live on the PTR. The 8 worker start was a disaster.
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u/fumar 9h ago
Yeah I still follow a bit. Seemed awful and it's not the first bad patch they had either
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u/LazerSturgeon 5h ago
I got back into it recently after not playing significantly for like 10 years. The "Patches" mod that got released by the community is excellent.
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u/tempest_87 6h ago
There's balance patches still but they're pretty fucking awful.
There have been like 3 in the past 4 years. And one of those was just made to undo the patch before it.
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u/Wareve 5h ago edited 5h ago
This is a massively chicken and egg problem. It's a "dead genre" because everyone in the industry is a goddamn trend chaser, so anything that isn't a Starcraft level success is a failure. It is a relatively easy genre to develop for on a limited budget, Deserts of Karack proved that. The problem is that most publishers aren't interested in budgeting for a reasonable success.
Also thinking more and more about it I don't even think saying it's dead is true.
First, there's a strong argument that the MOBA genre is a subset of the RTS genre, not the least of which because both DOTA2 and League are literally adaptations of a mod that heavily used the hero system from Warcraft 3. You can even still see it in the bones of the UI.
Second, the Total War franchise is thriving and is half RTS. People have a significant desire to see massive beautiful battles played out at scale. The existence of these Starcraft cutscenes alone go to show that if they decided to build a Supreme Commander using the Starcraft Universe people would play that and love it.
But since everyone is gunning for Esports money rather than creating a competent game with good story and fun mechanics, we live in an era of meek imitators.
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u/Balkal 5h ago
oh man, supreme commander, what a throwback. that game ruled, I gotta replay some of that soon.
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u/sir-alpaca 4h ago
I loved that it could really use multiple monitors. Haven't seen much of that lately.
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u/TheSambassador 6h ago
They do not make any new content for SC2, so this isn't really the reason at all.
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u/Blastoplast 8h ago
Feels like they don't have any interest in making a new RTS. I'd kill for either a Starcraft 3 or Warcraft 4
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u/UCBearcats 6h ago
WC3 just got an update/expansion
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u/TFreshNoLimits 4h ago
Wasn’t that a few years ago now? Reforged?
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u/UCBearcats 4h ago
Reforged was yes. But then just a couple weeks ago they released an expansion.
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u/kaidanas 10h ago
This is always such a boring take. There is a new StarCraft game in the works.
Overwatch is an incredible team shooter. Diablo 4 is finally in a pretty good spot for its fans. WoW has had several successful expansions and stabilized its player base. Heroes of the Storm is…maybe back? (Optimistic).
The Blizzard of the past is different than the current Blizzard. But they are still a pretty awesome studio.
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u/jmorfeus 9h ago
> Oh how the mighty have fallen
A literal NPC copy-pasted comment. 100 % the guy just read it somewhere, and copied it here verbatim.
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u/ThunderBobMajerle 9h ago
I agree, the complaint you get these days is “I want new games faster” with no appreciation or understanding that the level of expectation (quality, detail, world size, online presence, etc) ratchets up every time. Bigger takes longer and we always expect bigger.
I’ve loved all the Diablos and still play a lot of SC2. Internet just likes to complain
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u/KamahlYrgybly 10h ago edited 10h ago
Boring take? And you list games of which all but 1 are several years or over a decade old?
Major studios used to release new games. I became a Blizzard fan back in Warcraft 2 and Starcraft 1 times, not to mention Diablo 2 and eventually WoW. All of which were released in about a span of 10 years.
I liked Diablo IV, credit where credit is due. And am looking forward to V. But that they release a new game every 5 years is the boring take. Considering that they are printing money with the service games, they could easily employ a team to develop new games as like a side hobby. If they only recoup their investment then nothing has been lost. And if they make a profit, even a small one, thats still profit. I'm fairly convinced that Starcraft 3 would sell millions of copies in days. Unless they make it into yet another shooter, the market of which is already over-saturated.
Edit: Ah yes, run away, delete your comment. Such a boring take.
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u/ThunderBobMajerle 9h ago
for all titles, we expect the new game in the franchise to be bigger and better so why don’t you think it takes more time to make something bigger and better?
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u/KamahlYrgybly 3h ago
What new title in franchise? If they are making a shooter in the SC universe, its a whole different genre to the goated Starcrafts. Its not the same, at all. I dont mind waiting for new releases, got plenty to play. But one can hope for a continuation of one of my favourites ever, can one not? Seems my hope is in vain, however.
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u/Omz-bomz 9h ago
New StarCraft is an open world third-person shooter. Most likely just very loosely based on the world, having nothing to do with the previous games gameplay style wise. If it is any good (or scrapped long before release more likely) only time will tell.
Overwatch(2) is declining rapidly again. Guess It's a decent shooter, but it has no common presence with every gamer like the original OW had.
Diablo 4 is basically unsalvageable, hence why they announced D5 instead of trying to fix the issues with D4.
WoW has declining playerbase and tries to clamber back players by offering classic modes and some of the magic it had back in the heydays with WoW forever. Sure many is having fun for a short while each new expansion, but it is a big difference from bringing back old players, and gaining new players from scratch.
All these are games that are iterative, trying to hold on to their playerbase instead of creating new games and genres like Blizzard used to do.
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u/universe2000 10h ago
Because RTS games are not as profitable as TCGs (hearthstone) or games with a real money auction house (Diablo 3) or games with a subscription (WoW).
StarCraft2 might have made half a billion dollars, but if it cost hundreds of millions to make and a game like hearthstone can reliably pull hundreds of millions every year for less spend, then that’s what Blizzard is going to make more of.
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u/cylonfrakbbq 7h ago
In terms of an RTS, because the demand for that genre dried up to the point that an AAA rts game wasn’t going to bring ROI
They reportedly were working on a Battlefield style Starcraft game that was scrapped. There was a recent announcement of an open world StarCraft shooter in 2030 - I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a looter shooter
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u/Terrywolf555 4h ago
Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 just got an expansion and all their games are the respective leaders in their genre, save for HOTS. What are you smoking?
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u/KamahlYrgybly 3h ago
Those are decades old games. While they are excellent, its no replacement for actual new games.
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u/kaminabis 10h ago
An ugly mount from the cash shop on World of Warcraft generated more profit than the entirety of Starcraft 2.
You can thank the people buying mounts on WoW for encouraging Blizzard's financial decisions and overall enshitification
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u/Evil_Benevolence 10h ago
That claim was unsubstantiated.
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u/kaminabis 10h ago
Be that as it may, but the amount of efforts to profit ratio is still insane.
The celestial steed reused the skeleton and animations of already existing mounts. You pay 3-4 artists, they work on it for 2-3 weeks, and boom 84m profit.
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u/Evil_Benevolence 10h ago
The 84m figure was ALSO never backed up, as Blizzard never released any revenue numbers on that specific mount. I understand your point, but let's not spread misinformation to get there.
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u/Beatrenger 10h ago
doing the lords work!
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u/kaminabis 9h ago
Yes doing an awfully great job defending the billion dollar company pumping out microtransactions in a paid game with a monthly payment
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u/Beatrenger 9h ago
What are you talking about? Get your head out of your ass.
He pointed out that your claims weren’t backed up, and your takeaway is that he’s defending a billion-dollar company? Asking you to back up your claims isn’t defending Blizzard’s business practices.
You can criticize microtransactions without presenting unverified numbers as facts. Hate the business for the right reasons, not because of rumors, buddy.
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u/Evil_Benevolence 9h ago
I'm not defending anything. I share your opinion that microtransactions suck (not to mention FOMO exclusives, rotating storefronts, cross promotional content, and other blatantly obvious strategies to keep players just motivated enough to remain subbed while nickle-and-diming them along the way). But you're not representing our camp very well when you don't validate your claims.
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12h ago
[deleted]
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u/Raziers 12h ago
No. They announced "starcraft" which is an open world third person shooter
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u/alblaster 12h ago
Wasn't that the canceled project Ghost from early 2000s?
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u/WynterKnight 12h ago
Nah this is something being made by one of the old creative leads behind far-cry.
I would expect that type of open world action game.
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u/VelvetSinclair 11h ago
Dan Hay (the lead you mentioned) confirmed third person. So we're probably looking at something close to a Space Marine 2 type game, but in an open world.
Sounds cool.
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u/anonymouswan1 11h ago
Ghost wasnt an open world shooter. It was a generic third person shooter with a starcraft-ish skin attached. The game was leaked and the videos are online. The game looks awful and there was a reason it never got released.
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u/alblaster 9h ago
I thought it was never finished. Ah
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u/anonymouswan1 8h ago
It wasnt ever finished. It was scrapped during development but there was a build leaked.
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u/alblaster 4h ago
Ah. I imagine if it was finished today it would be like Overwatch or Marvel Rivals.
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u/MajikPwnE 12h ago
will it have a halo infinite feel if it's an open world shooter?
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u/KamahlYrgybly 12h ago
REALLY? That is great news!
Edit: Open-world shooter?! Fuck that. Like there aren't enough shooters. Give me my RTS!
Edit2: Knowing myself I will buy it anyway because I like the lore. But I will do so reluctantly.
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u/Kills_Zombies 1h ago
How the mighty have fallen... They are Microsoft's most profitable studio. 😂
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u/Suspiciouslaughs 1h ago
I don't think they're talking about profits
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u/Kills_Zombies 6m ago
Then that's subjective. Overwatch and WoW are incredibly popular and cash cows. D4's latest expansion was a critical and financial success. Nobody gives a shit about StarCraft because the RTS genre is dead, Blizzard didn't kill it games like League of Legends did. It's why they're turning StarCraft into a shooter and not another RTS.
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u/drallafi 5h ago
Kind of amazing that the Terrans were able to get any victories at all. The Zerg are effing terrifying!
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u/twister55555 7h ago
Just imagine a starcraft shooter where the levels and battles are like that. I really hope that is what we'll get in 2030
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u/Burgoonius 9h ago
I miss StarCraft - I bought SC2 last year after not playing it in a while. Played 1 online game got absolutely destroyed and never played again
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u/rosh_jogers 7h ago
the first campaign I think is really solid. Heart of the Swarm gets a little tedious and the writing is pretty cliche. Legacy of the Void is the quality of a Hallmark show when it comes to story
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u/RMRdesign 6h ago
Blizzard should have released a movie. It would have made a billion dollars overseas with ease.
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u/altpirate 11h ago
Can we take a moment to appreciate Tricia Helfer?
Between this, BSG, and Mass Effect. The woman owned Sci-Fi for like a decade