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Platform Mac, Win Publisher Blizzard Entertainment Developer Blizzard Entertainment Release Date 03/12/2013

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StarCraft 2 World Championship Series Season 1 American finals kick off June 1

By Alexa Ray Corriea on May 17, 2013 05.17.13

The StarCraft 2 World Championship Series Season 1 will kick off its American regional finals in New York City on June 1, Major League Gaming announced today. The two-day event will begin at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, June 1, and will be streamed live on the tournament's Twitch channel. Semifinals will take place at 2 p.m. ET on June 2, with the final round beginning at 5 p.m. ET. The last rounds of the Season 1 Premier League Group Stage 2 will be broadcast live from Major League Gaming's New York City studio next week. Matches will begin at 6 p.m. ET May 21-23. Challenge League rounds will take place May 27-30. The full schedule for the World Championship Series' American division is available on the Major League Gaming website. This is the first year of the StarCraft 2 World...

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Activision posts 'better-than-expected' Q1 2013 earnings, but is cautious about rest of year

By Samit Sarkar on May 08, 2013 05.08.13

Activision reported "better-than-expected" financial results for the first quarter of 2013 today, but according to CEO Bobby Kotick, the company expects to encounter a more challenging back half of the year. The publisher brought in net revenues of $1.32 billion during the quarter that ended March 31, a 13 percent improvement over the same period in 2012 and 14.1 percent ahead of the company's projections. Activision also showed a marked year-over-year jump in net income from $384 million to $456 million, a 13.75 percent increase. Activision's earnings were buoyed by the impressive sales performance of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, which was the top-selling Windows PC game in North America and Europe even though it launched with three weeks left in the quarter. In addition, Diablo...

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The Story of StarCraft outlines saga from 1998 beginnings to StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

By Megan Farokhmanesh on Apr 27, 2013 04.27.13

Blizzard Entertainment launched a "chapter-by-chapter outline" of StarCraft's lore, beginning with the original StarCraft, called The Story of StarCraft, the company announced via Battle.net. The nine-chapter saga extends to the end of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Each section is a summary of major events, spoilers included, within the game's story. Cinematic images, character and specific game info are also included with each chapter. "If you're looking for a refresher on the history of the Koprulu sector before jumping into a new campaign, or if you're planning to pick up somewhere in the middle, give the story a read," the announcement says. The outline does not include a summary of the latest installment, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, which launched last month.

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MLG's StarCraft 2 WCS America Qualifying Tournament begins this weekend

By Dave Tach on Apr 19, 2013 04.19.13

A series of broadcasts on Twitch.tv for Major League Gaming's StarCraft 2 World Championship Series America Qualifying Tournament will kick off this weekend and continue through next week, according to a press release from MLG. The broadcasts begin Saturday, April 20, at 1 p.m. ET and will proceed with winners and losers rounds through 10:30 p.m. ET. Sunday's matches focus on the losers brackets, beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET and ending after the final round which begins at 6 p.m. ET. MLG will also broadcast four qualifying matches beginning at 8 p.m. ET Monday through Friday. You can watch all of this week's matches at MLG's WCS America page on Twitch.tv. The 2013 World Championship series ranks players from WCS's American, European and Korean divisions through three seasons. These...

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StarCraft 2 World Championship Series season kicks off next week in Europe and North America

By Alexa Ray Corriea on Apr 09, 2013 04.09.13

The StarCraft 2 World Championship Series will kick off its first season in North America and Europe next week, while qualifying rounds in Korea are already underway, according to a list of dates posted to Battle.net yesterday. Qualifying rounds in Korea began on April 4, and regional finals will be held offline May 14 through June 1. In Europe, qualifiers will kick off on April 14, league play among the chosen 32 players will occur on April 23 and regional finals will begin on May 25. North American qualifiers will start on April 20, the 32 players will be whittled down on April 28 and finals will take place on May 31. The date for the championship finals is yet to be determined. Qualifying rounds for season two will also be taking place during the finals for season one. Blizzard has...

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Cinematics emotionally connect players to game narratives, says StarCraft 2 writer

By Alexa Ray Corriea on Mar 31, 2013 03.31.13

Cinematics help pull players into a story, bringing players "down to eye-level" and connecting them to event in the in-game world, according to Brian Kindregan, lead writer on StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm and co-writer for Wings of Liberty. Speaking in a panel at the 2013 Game Developers Conference today, Kindregan said cinematics help to humanize characters, something you don't get from watching sprites move around the screen. Cinematics bring players out of the basic world map and bring them into the heart of the action, allowing players to experience the "maximum amount of impact" of the story's emotions. "The amount of story we tell in a mission or on a map is very very small," he said. "If I have a line of dialogue in a map that fires four or five times, people will swear they...

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Blizzard marks StarCraft's 15th anniversary with achievement, portrait reward, wallpaper

By Samit Sarkar on Mar 31, 2013 03.31.13

Blizzard Entertainment launched the original StarCraft 15 years ago this weekend, and the studio announced Friday that it is marking the milestone with a new achievement and special rewards for StarCraft 2 players. StarCraft was released March 31, 1998, and from today through 2:59 a.m ET on April 18, 2013, StarCraft 2 players will be able to unlock a new Feat of Strength achievement to earn three portrait rewards featuring the original Protoss, Terran and Zerg StarCraft box art. In order to unlock the achievement and portraits, StarCraft 2 owners will have to play one online game in Arcade, Custom, Ranked, Unranked, Training or Versus A.I. mode. Blizzard is also releasing a commemorative desktop wallpaper with the Protoss Zealot, Terran Marine and Zerg Hydralisk; you can see it above,...

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StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm sells 1.1 million copies in two days

By Michael McWhertor on Mar 21, 2013 03.21.13

The first expansion for StarCraft 2, Heart of the Swarm, sold approximately 1.1 million copies worldwide in its first two days on sale, developer Blizzard Entertainment said in a release today. Blizzard said Heart of the Swarm's initial sales figure accounts for both retail and digital sales through Battle.net, but did not provide a breakdown of physical versus download sales. By comparison, Blizzard announced in August 2010 that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty had sold more than 1 million copies in its first day on sale, going on to sell more than1.5 million copies in the first 48 hours of availability. Blizzard also boasted that 1.1 million viewers tuned into the company's day-long broadcast of launch events and community celebrations, with a peak concurrent viewership surpassing...

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Blizzard details StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm's changes to league percentages

By Dave Tach on Mar 11, 2013 03.11.13

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, the impending expansion to Blizzard's real-time strategy game, will also bring changes to the game's ranked play league percentages to better reflect player skill levels, according to a post on the game's official website. The changes deal primarily with the lower tiers, where beginning players congregate before being promoted. In StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, the Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers are equally distributed with 20 percent of players each. Blizzard discovered that the lowest tier, Bronze, "encompassed a skill range that was too broad to be meaningful" while "Gold was too narrow." "As a result, the lowest ranked players in Bronze often tended to be far removed from the skill level of those at the top, or even the middle of the league,"...

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PETA to hand out Zerg anti-abuse pamphlets at StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm launch

By Megan Farokhmanesh on Mar 11, 2013 03.11.13

Animal rights group PETA will attend the midnight release of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm in Irvine, Calif., as part of a campaign to remind players to "have compassion for all beings," including those in the game. "Zerglings Have Feelings, Too" is intended to help players view StarCraft 2's Zerg species with empathy, director of marketing Joel Bartlett said. In Starcraft 2, the Zerg is a race of arthropodal aliens and the game's main antagonists. In Heart of the Swarm, players will control Zerg queen Sarah Kerrigan and her broods as she seeks revenge on her former Terran allies. "To paraphrase a great philosopher, the question is not 'Can Zerg reason?' nor 'Can they talk?' but 'Can they suffer when attacked with a Perdition flamethrower,'" Bartlett said. "PETA is full of StarCraft...

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Releases
North America
  • Mac
    • Released 03/12/2013
    • Publisher Blizzard Entertainment
    • Developer Blizzard Entertainment
  • Windows
    • Released 03/12/2013
    • Publisher Blizzard Entertainment
    • Developer Blizzard Entertainment
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