"Thought you were iced," Jim said to Tychus. "They let me out for good behaviour," Tychus replied as he picked up a bottle of whiskey.

As soon as the video was finished, the bar scene actually became interactive. "We're going to have these interactive spaces between all the missions." As Jim and Tychus sat at the bar, various items around the room were clickable, including a bulletin board. "This bulletin board will change as you advance in the storyline. It'll have current news, wanted posters - all influenced by what you do in the campaign."

You could also direct Jim to talk more with other characters and find out what's going on and what missions are available. "It's all about deeper character development."

Clicking on Tychus brought out a cutscene where he informs Jim that a tidy profit can be made from stealing an old Protoss artifact from the Dominion. "You'll find out about missions from various characters as you interact with them."

At this point, we skipped ahead to the third mission in the Terran campaign, and Rob clicked on the TV in the bar, which began showing a news report of surprise Zerg attacks on the planet, prompting Tychus and Jim to seek a way off the planet. Fortunately, Jim has access to a Terran Cruiser that he calls in, and your mission is to protect a couple of bridges from waves of Zerg as you wait for an evac.

After skipping ahead to the end of the mission, another cinematic sequence ensued, showing us that our favourite Zerg lady, Kerrigan, is back with a vengeance.

We were now in the Terran cruiser, inside another interactive space much like the bar from earlier. There's different areas including the armoury, mess hall, and bridge that you can explore, each populated with characters to talk to and acquire missions from. The conversations are all scripted; however: there are no response choices. This is no Mass Effect.

The armoury section is where you can actually implement technology upgrades you acquire during your missions. "Some of the technology you'll just find on missions, others you'll purchase with credits earned from missions."

Cutting back to the bridge section of the cruiser, Rob clicked on the star map floating in the room. "As we mentioned earlier, we don't want to be so linear, so at any point you can have up to five or six missions choices at a time." He clicked on a few and an "avatar video" that all StarCraft players are familiar with popped up that filled us in on the details of each mission.

Some missions that you can choose will have you saving people, and if you're successful, they'll be added to the cast of characters walking around the cruiser. These new characters will bring their own mission opportunities to you, opening the way for more credits and technology.

The StarCraft 2 Trilogy

"So you can see we're putting a lot more effort into the main campaign this time around. Which leads us to some challenges."

Rob explained that the new approach, with more cinematics, story, alternate missions, and more characters, meant a decision had to be made. "We have three choices: A) Simplify the campaign, give you less choices, less characters, less story. B) Make each campaign EPIC, but release each as a separate product. C) Compromise in the middle, but delay the game greatly."

"The choice we made might not be popular, but I think it's the best choice for the series," Rob said as he smiled nervously in front of a hushed audience of several thousand fans.

"We've decided to make a StarCraft 2 trilogy!" he announced to thundering applause.

As Sgt. Sausagepants reported, each race will have a separate game with their main campaign. The first game will be the Terran campaign, called Wings of Liberty, Zerg will be second, called Heart of the Swarm, and Protoss will be last (of course my favourite has to be last, GAH!), called Legacy of the Void.

Each game will feature a full campaign compliment of 26-30 missions, and will not influence the multi-player portion of StarCraft. The separate products are only relevant to the single player campaigns. Each campaign will have a set introduction, and a set end (no multiple endings!), but the middle is all up to the player.

While each game will deal with a different race and their story, there will be a Protoss mini-storyline that will weave through all three, focused on Zeratul, the Protoss Dark Templar assassin. "This will allow us to focus on a greater threat that is coming, and give the player an opportunity to play a different race to give them a break during the main campaign."

At this, Rob left us with a sneak peak at one minute of the four minute opening cinematic for StarCraft 2, which showed Zeratul fighting a swarm of Zerg with some badass Dark Templar moves. As he finishes off a Hydralisk by driving its own claw he cut off with his psyblade through its head, the camera panned out to a figure wreathed in darkness.

"Welcome, Zeratul. We've been expecting you," said the voice of Kerrigan.

Question & Answer

1. Are huge armies here to stay, or will StarCraft become hero focused like WC3? A: "StarCraft will continue to have massive armies, a fast RTS. We have no plans to implement heroes like WC3."
2. What about pricing? A: "Each campaign will be a separate product, with the Zerg and Protoss campaigns functioning like expansions. We haven't finalised pricing."
3. Will your choices during the missions in the campaign matter? A: "Yes! Depending on what missions you choose to take on, you will have access to different technologies, missions. Saving characters during missions can also lead you to have access to even more content as they bring their connections to you."
4. What about multiplayer? Will we be able to play with all three races if we own only one of the campaigns? A: "The multiplayer component is separate from the trilogy aspect. The Terran campaign will have full multiplayer; you will be able to play all three races."
5. Chronologically, will the campaigns be occurring at the same time or consecutively? A: "As far as storyline, the campaigns will be occurring sequentially."

This article is one in a series of in-depth articles detailing all the news from BlizzCon 2008.

Stay tuned for the rest of our coverage!

For the rest of the articles, here's the schedule with links to previously published portions of our series:

• Tues.) Diablo 3 Class Design
• Wed.) StarCraft 2 Gameplay Design, WoW Class Design
• Thurs.) Diablo 3 Lore & Art Design, WoW Raid & Dungeon Design
• Fri.) Q&A with The Guild cast, Diablo 3 Hands-On Impressions
• Sat.) Diablo 3 Gameplay Design, StarCraft 2 Hands-On Impressions