Ultimately, the ubiquitous Terran "bio ball" of marines, medics, and marauders proves too much for the mixed forces of stalkers, scouts, and warp rays that the Tal'Darim send after us. With the way this mission forces players to pay attention to timing, take control of disparate zones of the map, and defend the home front, it has more in common with a good multiplayer match than a traditional single-player RTS mission. You still need to defend your base (an unopposed warp ray makes quick work of any buildings), but managing multiple fronts is a necessity. Players have no choice but to aggressively seek out gas nodes to harvest while sending hit squads of their own to stop the enemy probes from locking the shrines down. This setup draws players out of the traditional single-player RTS mentality of turtling within a well-defended base until you have enough units to steamroll the opposition. Also, once we start harvesting the first Terrazine node, the Tal'Darim declare their intentions to come hard at any SCVs that dare defile their sacred shrines. Tosh informs me that the Protoss will be attempting to seal the geysers, at which point they will become permanently unusable for our purposes. A barracks, factory, and mercenary compound are set to start pumping out troops, and a small army and complement of SCVs are ready for action. His home base, the battlecruiser Hyperion, makes its way to the Terrazine planet.Īs the mission opens, I take control of a reasonably well-formed base awaiting orders. Tosh isn't interested in divulging his reasons, but revolution is an expensive business, so Raynor is in no position to turn down a chance to make a fat profit. The trick is that a splinter group of Protoss, the Tal'Darim, regard the shrines built around the geysers as sacred and will do everything in their power to keep the Terrans away. He's found a planet with reserves of Terrazine gas, for which he is willing to pay handsomely. Gabriel Tosh – the Jamaican-accented fellow with the dreadlocks and the voodoo necklace seen in the video below – has a job for Raynor's Raiders. Don't miss the videos embedded in the story and the high-res screenshots in the media gallery below. The three missions that Blizzard recently made available to the press showcase several of the ideas that drive the design of the single-player side of the game.
The multiplayer beta for Blizzard's upcoming RTS has been getting all the attention lately, but today we can share a rare substantive look at the story-based campaign.