I really wish I was a better Starcraft II player. I’m one of those random people who purchases the game in order to enjoy the single player experience or some of the custom maps made by the community. When it comes to the multiplayer, however, I like to steer clear. It’s not because I don’t like the game, but due to its steep learning curve, I’ve always found myself unable to participate in the multiplayer. With that said, I still find myself keeping up-to-date on the metagame by watching the streams of people like Day[9] or HuskyStarcraft. It’s really because of them that I can appreciate how the game is going to change with the addition of some new units in Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Multiplayer fans will immediately recognize how some of these units are going to change the way the game is played, but single player dorks like me are just psyched to have something new to kill the computer with.
Popular Starcraft II caster Day[9] and Blizzard’s own Rob Simpson sat down to cast a multiplayer match between the Zerg and the Protoss in the new expansion Heart of the Swarm. The game started off like any Starcraft II game I’ve ever seen, but after a few minutes it was pretty clear that the new units have changed some of the mid to late game strategies. The match itself was hosted by Blizzard which meant there was likely a lot of preparation and planning in order to utilize each of the new units in one match, but the game didn’t look scripted. It didn’t take Day[9] long to figure out each of the units either, even though that’s his job, and he didn’t seem to think anything was especially overpowered.
I appreciate when a company goes out of their way to promote a game like this. Instead of some ridiculous trailer they simply collaborated with an existing caster to show off some gameplay. Not that there won’t be a trailer for the game, but at least the hype they’re hoping to build is being done off of their gameplay and not something else.
The video of the match can be found below, skip ahead a bit to see some of the new units in a realistic setting.
