{"id":20150,"date":"2013-06-20T06:51:32","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T11:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=20150"},"modified":"2013-06-20T06:51:32","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T11:51:32","slug":"starcraft-2-story-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=20150","title":{"rendered":"Starcraft 2: Story Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been suggested by some that the campaign story in Starcraft 2 is hammy, obvious, and slathered in thick, cheesy melodrama. I can’t really argue with this, but I don’t think Blizzard’s storytelling has gotten any worse. I think the problem is that their production values got way better. <\/p>\n

It’s sort of intuitively understood that the events we see during gameplay are abstracted and stylized a great deal and that we shouldn’t take them literally. I mean, if we did we’d have to conclude that a barracks was about the size of your average living room, tanks are minivan-sized, and the dreaded Protoss Carrier is barely larger than a schoolbus. We don’t want our small units to be teeny tiny things that are impossible to click on and we don’t want our large units to cover the entire screen so we can’t see under them. Averaging out the sizes solves both problems. We also have the sides wearing vibrant colors and nobody can see more than twenty meters in front of their face. <\/p>\n

Try to picture that marine climbing into the cockpit of that plane.<\/td><\/tr>
Try to picture that marine climbing into the cockpit of that plane.<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

There are really good gameplay reasons for this, and nobody minds these abstractions because the game would look ridiculous if we tried to depict it in a photorealistic way. <\/p>\n

Keep in mind that while the original game had animated cutscenes<\/a>, they were not used to tell the story. Often the events depicted were completely unrelated to the stuff you were doing. Once in a long while a main character might make an appearance, but generally these little vignettes were just there to set a mood and show what the world “really” looked like outside of the abstracted depictions that we were given during gameplay. They were a fun reward for completing the recent block of long, grindy missions. <\/p>\n

starcraft_briefing.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

The bulk of the story was told in mission briefings<\/a>. Every mission briefing was basically a Google Hangout with the principal characters, but with lower video quality. (The future of the past always looks kind of strange.) They would talk, argue, emote, and threaten, all while the same few seconds non-lip-synced head animation looped. <\/p>\n

Sometimes it was even told in blocks of text.<\/p>\n

starcraft_intro.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Like the abstracted visuals of the gameplay, the story itself is told in broad, exaggerated strokes. Since the story happens with talking heads, it would be very, very easy for this to become tedious. The writers keep it lively by filling the story with vibrant, over-the-top characters. You’ve got flawed heroes, noble idealists, scheming opportunists and devious backstabbers. The performers lay it on thick and try to sell the drama with just their voice.<\/p>\n

And then we get to Starcraft 2…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In Starcraft 2, we’re no longer constrained by the graphical and budgetary limitations of 1998. Blizzard has heaps of riches, tons of skill, and lots of processor power to throw at the problem. If they want their story to look like a movie, it can. It does.<\/p>\n